North is where we build the Corolla, the best selling vehicle of all time, and the Matrix, which is made exclusively at TMMC. The plant is located in Cambridge, Ontario. Here’s a brief overview—by the numbers.
1997
That’s the year North Assembly opened for business and Corolla production moved from the original (now “South”) plant. Since TMMC started production, we’ve manufactured more than 1,500,000 Corollas.
Five
That’s the number of Corolla generations we’ve manufactured since 1988. The current Corolla model now perfectly holds an extra large Canadian “double-double” coffee in the cup holder and has floor pedals that fit North American shoes (size 10.5 men’s winter boots to be exact), thanks to a Canadian TMMC engineer who spent a year in Japan helping to evolve the vehicle design.
2002
Since 2002, Toyota Matrix has been made exclusively at TMMC. Both Corolla and Matrix are assembled on the same lines making the North Plant the first multi-vehicle line for TMMC. It’s a complex operation made possible by highly trained Team Members and the just-in-time timing of the Toyota Production System. Daily production of Corolla and Matrix together can total almost 1,000 vehicles.
95,864
That’s the number of parts the 21 presses in the Press Shop stamp out each day. To make those parts requires over 100 metric tonnes of steel. The dies that perform the ‘cuts’ weigh from 2 to 29 metric tonnes. Those dies will go up and down 172,148 times each day as they produce 216 different parts. In a testament to TMMC’s environmental commitment, not one piece of metal scrap goes to scrap. It is all collected, recycled, and reused.
1900
Give or take a few, that’s the number of parts that Team Members bring together in order to complete just one Corolla. Matrix requires a few more— around 1,932. All together, Team Members may handle over 1.7 million parts in a single day. Many of those parts are made right on-site. The rest are brought daily, in as many as 135 daily trailer loads—each load arriving just hours before the parts are required on the production lines.
Quick Facts
| Facilities |
Cambridge - 3 million sq ft Woodstock - 1.8 million sq ft |
| Investment | $5.6 billion CAD |
| Employment | 6,500 |
| Products | 4-Door Corolla Sedan, Matrix |
500
That’s the number of total quality checks that each vehicle produced in the North Plant will undergo as it makes it way along various assembly lines. Some checks—such as chisel checks and fit & finish inspections—are performed by Team Members. Others are carried out by state-of-the art lasers that test for dimensional accuracy. These checks are a critical aspect of Toyota’s philosophy of “built in quality” at each step of production.