Honda Motor Co. later this year plans to expand a new manufacturing system that will cut costs and preparation time for making its Acura MDX sport utility.
Honda’s Canadian unit used the system, which includes welding robots that can be programmed to recognize which vehicle they’re working on, to get ready to build the MDX in Alliston, Ontario.
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Honda wants to get MDX production going because the Acura unit has been losing customers to competitors’ sport-utility vehicles.
The new system will increase speed by reducing the time needed to bring a new model to mass production or to add an existing model to a different plant. It will increase efficiency by cutting much of the investment normally needed for retooling.
The manufacturing system will let any plant retool to produce popular vehicles such as its Civic and Accord sedans quickly and at less cause than existing methods. The Alliston production line can switch from Odysseys to MDXs in about 8 minutes.
Honda now have the ability to develop three models in North America at the same time.
