Toyota Cuts Production, Georgetown Plant Included

Car sales continue to decline and that has Toyota Motor Corporation changing its production schedule to offset an inventory surplus. Many of the company’s North American plants will see schedule changes, including its operation in Georgetown, Kentucky.Spokesperson Rick Hesterberg says the national recession is taking its toll."We’ve seen high inventory levels caused by slow industry sales and because of that we’ve had to come up with more non-production days, which is going to vary by assembly line, and by model, and by plant," says Hesterberg.For the Georgetown plant, it means additional shut-down days. They’ll scale back production on four assembly lines, which will halt production for 12 to 20 days over the next three months.They’re also cutting-costs in other ways."We’ve limited travel, we’re cut overtime, we’ve done a lot of things to reduce our utility needs and so on, so we’ve done a good job of containing our costs and reducing, now we’re just hoping this economy turns around," says Hesterberg.He says no permanent employees are being laid off at this time.