Dive Brief:
- TOTO has opened a $224 million manufacturing facility in Morrow, Georgia, raising high-end one-piece toilet production capacity by 150%, the company said in an Aug. 22 press release.
- TOTO plans to shift more production from the TOTO Group's Asia plants to North America, strengthening the company's regional supply chain, raising manufacturing resilience, and advancing longer-term sustainability goals.
- "This expansion cements our leadership in luxury bathroom innovation while creating a more agile, resilient manufacturing network," Taro Muroi, CEO of TOTO USA, said in the release.
Dive Insight:
TOTO expects to shorten product lead times by sourcing luxury toilets from its North America plants instead of Asia factories, the company said in the release. Expanding localized production is also expected to reduce shipping distances, improve timely product delivery and lower transportation-related carbon emissions.
TOTO has dedicated almost half of the three-story, 363,393-square-foot Morrow facility to manufacturing approximately 300,000 high-end one-piece toilets annually, a strategic North American product, per the release. The plant, scheduled to start production in the fall, will raise the region's capacity to roughly 1 million units per year across TOTO's Morrow and Lakewood, Georgia, plants and its Mexico facilities.
The Morrow facility, which sustains 420 local jobs, includes high-pressure casting equipment that overcomes previous production limitations by enabling larger, more complex designs, which TOTO expects will expand the range of premium products made in North America.
The new facility includes technology for higher operational efficiency, such as heat-resistant QR codes. The codes enable real-time tracking, quality control, and data analysis to improve manufacturing processes.
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