http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660816004&template=printart

TOKYO - To see the roots of Toyota Motor Corp.'s excellence, go 
beneath its new assembly plant in Guangzhou, China. Toyota group 
suppliers zip parts through a series of underground tunnels to the 
line building Camrys.

Some parts never go outside before being installed on a car. They 
therefore require less packaging than similar parts delivered to 
assembly plants in Toyota City, reducing their cost.

As the Guangzhou plant shows, Toyota's strength does not lie in a 
single core competency. It rises from a complex, interlocking set of 
extraordinary skills. These include working closely with suppliers, 
continually finding ways to innovate and improve, and constantly 
challenging itself to cut costs.

The result is a carmaker that today dominates the industry in a way no 
single company has since the glory days of the Ford Model T or General 
Motors' global dominance in the 1950s.

This year could mark a milestone: Toyota appears on track to pass 
General Motors in global vehicle sales. In the first half, Toyota's 
sales rose 10.4 percent to 4.36 million, narrowing the gap as GM's 
fell 2.3 percent to 4.60 million.

That changing of the guard is not just the result of Toyota's strength 
in Asian markets such as Japan or Thailand. Much of Toyota's future 
growth will come in the United States, at the expense of its U.S. 
rivals. Indeed, Toyota's total sales in the United States topped 
Ford's during July.

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