News

Toyota Helps Charity Help More People

Toyota – thanks to the fact that they listened to Dr. W. Edwards Deming when American auto companies wouldn’t – famously revolutionized the automotive manufacturing process and became the number one selling car company in the world. Now they’re using that expertise to help others do their jobs better.

They helped a food bank in West Virginia take a fresh look at their process last week, enabling them to serve up to six times more hungry children in the area than before.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia worked with the Facing Hunger Food Bank in Huntington, WV to demonstrate best practices for manufacturing. The time invested in evaluating their system paid off – their combined efforts increased efficiency for their back pack program by 600 percent. They also helped to increase storage space in the warehouse by two-thirds.

“Better serving the community was the ultimate goal,” says Charles Jarrell, TMMWV training and development specialist. “More than that, it was incredibly rewarding to watch the food bank staff learn, grow and challenge their assumptions about how best to serve the community. This just goes to show the things we do every day at the plant can be applied anywhere and make a dramatic impact.”

The back pack program provides backpacks full of food to children who may not have enough to eat at home.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia took the blueprint for the program from the Toyota Production System Support Center, a national organization that offers manufacturing support and expertise to agencies straddling various industries, with a focus on helping people serve their communities.

For TMMWV, it’s all about helping out in Huntington.

“Toyota’s approach is built around people,” says TMMWV President Millie Marshall.“Knowledge-sharing across industries helps community partners help more people in need, which benefits the communities we live and work in. Once the food bank learned our methodology, they made it their own and utilize it every day. At Toyota, we believe when good ideas are shared, great things happen.”

Carolyn Briggs

I grew up on the road. As a child, my family took regular trips from Wisconsin to both coasts. That's how I've seen most of this country — through the window of a car. Years later, I still feel that excitement when I toss my bags in the trunk and get behind the wheel. That's how seeing something new always begins. I've scaled mountains, dived with sharks, and stepped to the very edge of the Grand Canyon, all because I spent hours in a car. This site combines my passion for the road with my actual talent — communication and journalism. In college I rose to the position of managing editor for The Badger Herald, the largest independent student newspaper in the country at the time. I spent a year after graduating in social media marketing before moving off the grid to explore the wild beauty of West Virginia.