JTEKT North America Tennessee and Georgia Facilities Receive Supplier Awards from Toyota

Greenville, SC (March 28, 2018)  – JTEKT North America Corporation’s facilities in Vonore and Morristown, Tennessee were presented with Excellent and Superior awards, respectively, as supplier of automotive systems for the latest Toyota Camry Launch. The company’s KOYO Bearings facility in Cairo, Georgia was recognized with an Excellent Award for Quality. The awards were presented by Toyota Motor North America, Inc. (TMNA) at its Annual Supplier Business Meeting (ABM), held in Detroit which brings together approximately 850 supplier representatives from across North America. 

Additionally, five JTEKT North America facilities received Quality Certificates, and the company was awarded a Supplier Diversity Certificate, recognizing the diversity of JTEKT North America’s supply base.

“We strive to be the preferred company by all stakeholders,” said Mike Davidson, Chief Operating Officer, JTEKT North America. “This recognition is a testament of that commitment by our associates in safety, quality, and delivery performance. We are honored to have received the number and caliber of awards from Toyota.”

Currently celebrating 22 years, ABM allows TMNA to discuss business objectives with direct and indirect suppliers in preparation for its upcoming fiscal year. Each year, TMNA recognizes suppliers who exceeded the company’s expectations in several categories.

"Toyota collaborates with each of our supplier partners in order to build vehicles with the high safety, quality and reliability standards to meet and exceed our customer’s expectation,” said Robert Young, Group Vice President, TMNA R&D Purchasing and Supplier Engineering Development and Cost Planning.  “We are pleased to recognize those in our supply base who exceed our high performance targets and allow us to build ‘ever better vehicles’ for our North American customers.  We thank them and their team members for their tremendous support, partnership and commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration.”

 About JTEKT North America

JTEKT North America is a regional division of JTEKT Corporation employing more than 7,000 associates at 16 manufacturing facilities plus additional technical and sales centers in North America. The companies that make up JTEKT North America have been doing business as long as 100 years, supplying bearings, steering systems, driveline components, and machine tools. Visit http://www.jtekt-na.com

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 36 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14 manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than 47,000 people (more than 37,000 in the U.S.).  Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold more than 2.7 million cars and trucks (2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2017 – and about 87 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 15 years are still on the road today.  

Toyota partners with community, civic, academic, and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We share company resources and extensive know-how to support non-profits to help expand their ability to assist more people move more places. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com. 

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Additional quotes:

“This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our employees and the advanced technology that JTEKT makes a priority to better service our customers,” said Brad Franklin, Plant Manager at JTEKT North America Vonore.

“To be one of only two recipients of this award makes this even more special for the hard-working team members at the Morristown facility,” said Drew Rowe, Plant Manager at JTEKT North America Morristown. 

“This award recognizes the hard work and dedication of the staff and the innovative technology that JTEKT makes a priority to better service our customers,” said Wanda Richardson, Plant Manager at JTEKT North America Koyo Bearings in Cairo.

“We are honored to receive this recognition for multiple facilities highlighting our dedicated workforce, our commitment to innovative technology, and the customer first focus of the JTEKT Way,” said Koichi Yamanaka, President and CEO, JTEKT North America.