Toyota celebrates 25 years of manufacturing in Indiana

Toyota Industrial Equipment Mfg. (TIEM), the Indiana-based company building Toyota brand forklifts, recently commemorated the manufacturing plant’s 25 years of operations in the USA, during which time it has produced 500,000 lift trucks.

The event, attended by Toyota’s 1,500-plus associates, a number of Japanese Toyota executives and Indiana’s Governor Mike Pence, highlighted the company’s further investment in the community with multi-million dollar plans to expand the TIEM campus.

“Toyota’s 25th anniversary manufacturing forklifts in the US couldn’t have happened without our suppliers, customers, dealers and all of the Toyota associates who have helped along the way,” said Brett Wood, president and CEO of Toyota Material Handling North America. “We are proud to call Columbus, Indiana, the home of Toyota Forklifts.”

Toyota announced a new $16 million dollar expansion and building renovation at its Columbus campus. The 50,600-square-foot addition will include manufacturing and support space for human development activities, new manufacturing technology development, new product development, and the company’s Vision 2020 strategic initiatives. The expansion includes a two-story office building, a new cafeteria, a new storm shelter and locker room, and expansion space for Toyota’s on-site medical center for associates and their families. The new building will also serve as headquarters for Toyota Material Handling North America, the North American division of Toyota Material Handling Group.

In 1990, the facility was about 280,000-square-feet and employed 56 people. Fourteen expansions later, it now employs more than 1,500 people and covers more than 1.1 million square feet. A show of hands indicated that almost half of the workers in attendance had been with the company for at least 10 years. Of the original 56 employees, several were in the audience, as well as a delegation of Japanese employees and executives who helped launch and grow the company 25 years ago.

In his remarks before a pig roast luncheon on Thursday, Pence said Indiana is home to 52,000 employees of more than 250 Japanese-owned companies, and praised the country for its enduring commitment to the state.

In addition, Toyota announced its partnership with the Columbus Express Soccer Club to sponsor a new local indoor soccer facility to be named the Toyota Industrial Equipment Soccer Pavilion. The company’s contribution will fund most of a $750,000 to $1 million 20,000-square-foot indoor complex on the Columbus Municipal AirPark campus.