On February 27, VASI and Toyota Vietnam held the closing ceremony of the “Improvement Consulting Program for Supporting Industry Enterprises,” a collaboration between Toyota Vietnam and the Vietnam Association for Supporting Industries (VASI) for the 2024-2025 period. The event took place at Hanotech’s factory in Quang Minh Industrial Park, Hanoi.
The program was attended by 29 member enterprises, including 5 supported companies presenting their reports and 24 member enterprises visiting for learning purposes. The event was chaired by Mr. Phan Dang Tuat, Chairman of VASI, and Mr. Hitoshi Ugi, Head of Technical and Supply Chain at Toyota Vietnam.
Presentation of Improvement Results and Factory Visit
During the closing ceremony, the five supported companies this year—JAT, Zion, Hanotech, Hanel Xốp Nhựa, and SASI—presented their improvement results, lessons learned, and future improvement plans. Member enterprises also had the opportunity to visit the Hanotech factory and directly observe the improvements achieved.
Since 2023, Toyota Vietnam has collaborated with VASI to implement a project supporting the development of local suppliers in the automotive industry. During the 2023-2024 period, the program successfully supported six companies in improving their production sites using Toyota’s methodologies. The results were clearly demonstrated by reductions in factory space usage, labor costs, and the number of operations required to produce a product.
Building on this success, the 2024-2025 program continues to support five new VASI member enterprises: JAT, Hanotech, Hanel Xốp Nhựa, Zion, and SASI.
Toyota Vietnam’s Support and Key Focus Areas
Experts from Toyota Vietnam selected the most fundamental yet impactful improvement topics, which apply to all companies but have a significant influence on their production systems. These key topics include:
- 5S methodology
- Karakuri (low-cost automation)
- Motion analysis
- MIFC (Material & Information Flow Costing)
Toyota provided training for key personnel in these companies and supported them in applying this knowledge to their production lines.
Key Achievements After Six Months of Implementation
With Toyota’s support, companies have successfully implemented 5S improvements, safety enhancements, and process optimization, leading to better production efficiency.
After six months of implementation, the program exceeded expectations, delivering not only specific improvements but also a shift in management thinking.
Specific Improvement Results
Here are some of the quantifiable results achieved by the participating companies:
- SASI
- Saved 1,520 m² of factory space.
- Reduced HR costs by 720 million VND/year.
- Reduced working capital by 7.8 billion VND by optimizing raw material inventory through Kaizen milk run.
- JAT
- Saved 1.1 billion VND/year in HR costs.
- Reduced transportation costs by 293 million VND/year through Kaizen milk run.
- Hanotech
- Saved 1.7 billion VND/year in HR costs.
- Reduced working capital by 1.1 billion VND through inventory reduction.
These outstanding results demonstrate the tangible benefits of Toyota’s improvement methodology and reinforce the commitment to enhancing the competitiveness of Vietnam’s supporting industry enterprises.
