Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. (TEMA) on December 12 announced the following senior management changes, effective January 5, 2009:
• Kazumori Oi, currently senior advisor at Toyota's Indiana plant, will become president.
• Indiana plant president Shuichi Koyama will return to Toyota in Japan to accept an assignment to be announced at a later date.
• Wil James will be the new senior vice president of the Indiana plant. James previously led TABC, Toyota's California parts plant.
• Norm Bafunno will take on a new role as vice president of North American production engineering at TEMA. Bafunno previously led manufacturing, production and quality planning at the Indiana plant.
• Hideki Matsunaga, president of Toyota's Mexico plant, will concurrently serve as TABC president.
• Mike Bafan, currently general manager of production engineering at the TEMA West Coast office, will become vice president of manufacturing and administration at TABC.
• Brian Krinock, vice president of production engineering at TEMA, will be the new vice president of production at the Cambridge, Ontario plant.
• Gilbert Passin, vice president of manufacturing at Toyota's Cambridge plant, will take on a new role as general manager, production engineering, TEMA West Coast office.
• Kirk Kohler, general manager at the Texas plant, will be promoted to vice president of production and onsite supplier support.
• Keiichi Fukushima, vice president of TEMA customer quality engineering – Los Angeles, and senior advisor of the TEMA quality division, will retain his current customer quality engineering responsibilities and also become vice president of TEMA's quality division.
• Hideki Ono, will return to Toyota in Japan to accept an assignment to be announced at a later date.
• Yoshikatu Nakamura, currently vice president of powertrain and chassis at the Toyota Technical Center (TTC) in Michigan, will be assigned to Toyota's Washington, D.C., office.
• Toshio Yoshidome, project general manager of the engine engineering division at Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, will become vice president of powertrain and chassis at TTC.
• Cheryl Jones, currently vice president of manufacturing support and powertrain at the Kentucky plant, will become vice president of administration.
• Takao Gonno, vice president of administration at the Kentucky plant, will retain his responsibilities as treasurer and assume responsibilities as a senior advisor.
• Dan Robbins, vice president of the Bodine Aluminum plant in Tennessee, will retire after 27 years of service to Toyota and its affiliate operations.
