Manufacturing

We’ve all been in settings over the years, from locker rooms to auto plants in China, in which motivational signs were prominently displayed to ensure that key lessons were not forgotten.

British American Tobacco has never been afraid to embrace change. This is a quality it shares with the most successful businesses throughout history and has been a major contributing factor in the Group’s success over the past 112 years since it was formed in 1902.

The announcement that Toyota will stop making cars in Australia in 2017, marks an end to the nation's car manufacturing sector. Last year, Ford and General Motors' Holden unit also announced plans to stop producing cars in Australia.

Around 2,500 Toyota workers will lose their jobs, while the loss of the wider automotive industry will put tens of thousands more jobs at risk.

In the short space of five years since BevPak was established in Ibadan, Nigeria’s third largest city, the company has put down strong roots in Nigeria. In 2008, a group of entrepreneurs bought a small operation in the city and equipped it with modern machinery to produce the preforms from which PET bottles are blown. The Managing Director of this operation is Syd Carter, who has 18 years’ experience in the PET conversion industry in Africa.

The figure represents a two percent increase on Toyota’s sales figures for 2012 and placed it 270,000 vehicles ahead of its closest rival, General Motors (GM). It also comes at the start of a year during which time the company hopes to see 10.32 million vehicles worldwide.

This marks something of a turnaround for Toyota, which had suffered in recent years from reputation issues following a series of recalls and safety issues, events that saw more than 14 million vehicles recalled in the US alone.

Any kaizen event will reveal how one small incremental process improvement can be worth significant bottom-line impacts. Kaizen, Japanese for “improvement” or “change for the best,” refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers.

The announcement by the German carmaker comes as it seeks to boost its sales in the region, and the world’s biggest carmaker by 2018. By that time the company also hopes to achieve its goal of selling a million Volkswagens and Audis, its luxury brand, to American customers.

The agreement ends long negotiations with the current owners, Veba, the healthcare trust affiliated to the United Auto Workers' union (UAW). The deal will see Chrysler and Fiat pay the trust an initial $3.65 billion. Once the deal is signed off, Chrysler will then pay Fiat another $700 million.

The world’s second most used metal after steel, aluminium is blessed with a host of positive characteristics that have made its use invaluable to the modern world. The most common metal found in the earth’s crust, it possesses a remarkably low weight-to-strength ratio, high resistance to corrosion, is easy to shape and is 100 percent recyclable.