The success of Toyota’s car-making plant in Derbyshire, one of two in Europe which wil move to triple shift working in early 2004, is helping safeguard more than 700 jobs at its North Wales engine plant, the site’s manager, John Burton, said.
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Announcing the introduction of a new diesel engine at the Deeside plant which will go into Corolla models from early next month, he said it would now lift total engine assembly at Deeside to more than 400,000 units a year.
Opened in September 1992, Toyota Deeside started making petrol engines for the Carina E (European version of the Corona) and then extended into Corolla motors and two years ago added Yaris (Echo, Vitz) power units to its output.
Up to now it has only made petrol engines, but late last year it began diesel production for the new Avensis and now supplies the latest Corolla.
Engines go from Deeside to the Toyota car plant at Burnaston, Derby but are also exported to the Yaris plant in France, a Corolla plant in Turkey and factories in the Far East, with components going to other Toyota facilities around the world.
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By GlobalDataBy the end of 2004, Toyota Deeside is expecting to build about 430,000 engines annually.
Burton said: “We are at capacity and cannot supply any more engines to Burnaston, which will have to source its additional engines from other plants.
“We would want to see how demand pans out in the medium term before we decide on what we do at Deeside in future. We are currently working five days a week on two shifts and use weekends to do essential maintenance. We have room to expand the site.”
The introduction of the new diesel line created almost 100 jobs in the factory near Chester late last year.
