Inside Lexus LFA Works

Opportunities like this rarely occur. In November 2012, I visited Lexus LFA Works in Aichi, Japan, to witness the beginning of the end for Toyota's first supercar. Only a few weeks remained in the model's scheduled two-year, 500-unit production run. I would be one of last people to see an LFA slowly make its way down the manicured assembly line. I would also be the final journalist to speak with those who made the unique vehicle.

In 2008, the takumi selection began, some 8 years after chief engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi started developing the Lexus LFA. This would be the most stringent recruitment for LFA Works manager Shigeru Yamanaka. He needed to ensure that everything at the production facility would happen as expected. It all started with a special team.

"Before I got this position, I was the company baseball coach," he explained.

"I'm not a technical person. I work more behind a desk."

We were standing beside a Whitest White LFA. It was one of the last on the production docket. A takumi, or master artisan, hoisted a wheel up to its hub. His gloved hands moved deliberately as he silently and meticulously checked tire pressures. He jotted down each pound-foot he applied to every lug. Ten or so artisans worked farther upstream. Each had 180 memorized tasks to accomplish. Tool chests, small carts, and blue parts bins flanked the working line. No automated robots trolled these facilities. Every bolt was documented after it was fastened. All equipment moved in a carefully orchestrated waltz. No noise. No dust. No rush. Only calm, collected, mindful assembly.

"Since this is a short-term production, workers are gathered from our various factories," Yamanaka continued. "As explained to me, my position doesn't require a technical background. Instead, it requires more management and team-building skills, being that our workers originate from different facilities."

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For this project, cherry-picking an elite group was critical to not just the immediate organization's success, but also to that of the entire company.

"Passion was valued more than technical background, and the selection process was difficult. I didn't personally interview each candidate, but I went to the factories and met with managers. I explained to them the type of person we needed. They understood and recommended their top candidates, he said."

By 2009, materials specialists and expert painters, topline production managers, master quality controllers, and astute assemblers formed a team of nearly 200 at Toyota's Motomachi Plant in Aichi. Their job: Build Toyota's most advanced, most expensive, and most powerful production car to date.

"Each worker approaches day-to-day operations with a philosophy based on improvement," Yamanaka explained. The idea of kaizen, of neverending betterment, permeates throughout Japanese culture. "For example, today is better than yesterday, tomorrow is better than today. This is the Toyota DNA."

A Lexus craftsman is akin to a V-12 builder at Mercedes-AMG, or an aerodynamicist at Red Bull Racing. The level of expertise, passion, and care for the final product is virtuosic. The cleanliness and order of their workspace is obsessive, and they're frequently tested. Painters take hue tests, for example, and leather workers must show adept dexterity in their non-dominant hand by folding intricate origami.

"Takumi, the LFA craftsmen, were tasked with transforming our designs into a real car," said chief engineer Tanahashi. "They are the backbone of the LFA. I trust them."

"Being a takumi means evolving the car," continued Yamanaka. "Each worker came from a different factory, and everyone here loves cars. I overhear their conversations when they are doing their tasks. They talk about things like whether they can make a part lighter or tweak it to make the car accelerate faster."

But compiling a team was only part of the mission. These craftsmen had to literally learn how to build this advanced piece of performance machinery. For Lexus and Toyota, this had never been done before.

"My background is actually in mass production," said Takumi (his actual name)Yamaishi, group leader for Body and Team Development. "I came from a place where I put out 500 to 600 cars a day. Here it was completely different. The question was, 'Can we even make one car a day?' The pace is different. So there was a bit of anxiety involved."

The production line was as simple as possible, consisting of trim, chassis, and body stages. Company president Akio Toyoda made sure of it. The dedicated LFA division within Motomachi was to be an example for the entire company. It would be streamlined, organized, efficient, and intelligent. There would be no overly complicated production techniques, and no internal divisions among staff. The concept of obeya, the sharing of ideas in a big room, was imperative for success. The artisans would return to how their Toyota forefathers built cars 70 years ago.

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Mastering the production of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), the lightweight and rigid composite that made up the majority of the LFA's body and monocoque chassis, proved the most time-consuming -- and important -- challenge of learning how to build the LFA.

According to Masahito Miyoshi, Lexus LFA Works project manager, back in 2005, Toyota purchased other automakers' CFRP technology. But engineers soon realized the material wasn't up to snuff, so they scrapped everything and established a dedicated division. They needed to learn on their own.

Ninety of the 170 takumi were assigned to carbon-fiber creation in the chassis and body stages. They revisited Toyota's textile roots and applied past technological and philosophical tenets to their current assignment. They focused on the idea of saiteki, the mind-set of using optimized techniques for certain parts, when determining their production processes. They studied other industries, visited various factories, and constantly amended their methods.

Since the LFA's 425-pound chassis was 65 percent CFRP and 35 percent aluminum and its body was also mostly CFRP, they specialized in the most innovative fabrication techniques, including pre-impregnated sheets (pre-preg, used on the dash and firewall), resin-transfer molding (RTM; floor panels, seatbacks, and powertrain tunnel), and carbon-fiber sheet molding compound (C-SMC; rear hatch).

A robotic loom with 144 spools that spin strands of 24,000 carbon threads made just one part: the hollow door surrounds. The loom (the only one used in the automotive world), along with neighboring weaving machines, represented more than just an efficient way to build rigid parts. They were physical reminders of Toyota's early 20th-century loom-making origins.

The craftsmen learned fast. They educated themselves in how to handle delicate layers of carbon threads. They became erudite in the ways of the vacuum seal and the Ashida autoclave. They reported their every failure and success in "Takumi Books," a trove of notes outlining personal methods of CFRP constructing and application. The notebooks served as study manuals for the entire facility. Toyota had never before kept such an exhaustive record for one production procedure.

Although a critical element of the LFA's genome, carbon-fiber production was not the sole DNA strand that needed decoding. Body and trim stages went through growing pains. Many body parts and chassis pieces were scrapped for being faulty or painted incorrectly. Improvements to rigidity were implemented with successive prototypes. Quality control experts created a list of 9000 checkpoints.

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In December 2010, after two years filled with imperfect carbon-fiber molds, quickened production procedures, and 40 preproduction prototypes, the first customer editions were completed. A single takumi hand-painted every body panel using one paint can per car to ensure color uniformity, and it took 19 artisans on the trim stage to fulfill Toyota's one-car-per-day order.

Like ordained ministers, these final assemblers presided over the marriage of powertrain, chassis, body, and interior. They filed every chassis' "Evidence List," a record of data for each of the 500 units. The 1300-page books stuffed with drawings, measurements, torque specs, tire pressures, assembly procedures on every LFA built are locked inside Motomachi.

On December 14, 2012, nearly a month after my visit, the takumi completed chassis No. 500, a Whitest White Nuerburgring Edition.

In so many ways, the Lexus LFA Works fulfilled its mission. What the hand-picked artisans accomplished and learned in Motomachi will permeate throughout the various reaches of Lexus and Toyota manufacturing, particularly when it comes to CFRP. Current ES, GS, and LS models utilize extensive takumi work.

"I would like to use the takumi skills I learned here and apply them to a new carbon project," said CFRP Vacuum Group leader Tatsuya Sato. "I have a dream of creating a car using carbon."

"On the first car, to be frank, we went through a lot of tough times," said Noriyoshi Sugawara, another LFA group leader. "Those tough times energized me and gave me the will to fight harder and to actually make a vehicle that was a success at the end. I expect to apply that same feeling to the last car I make. When the last car goes out, I'm expecting a great sense of satisfaction and completion that we've accomplished our mission."

"We'd love to take it from this pioneer step to the next level so that we can use the actual experience and apply it more broadly and deeply in Toyota," said Yukihisa Kamiya, CFRP group leader.

"When it's all over, I might cry," said Nobuaki Amano, senior LFA test driver.

"I cannot tell you how I will feel until that last moment arrives," said Yamanaka. "From a managerial standpoint, if no one was injured and everyone put his heart and soul into each car, all the way until the 500th, I will be content. I think everyone involved will share the same feeling of accomplishment. Personally, I have a son and daughter. It's going to feel like my daughter is getting married."

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