the power to surprise

we started off monday morning bright and early with a trip to the kia plant.  one of my classmates had a friend who previously worked at kia and hooked us up with a visit to kia (the car manufacturer).  kia actually picked us up in seoul on a "kia" bus, drove us to their plant in hwaseong (about an hour away from seoul) and hosted us and then drove us back in the afternoon.

at hwaseong (location of the plant), we met one of the assistant managers of the general affairs team who provided some background on the company and their ascent over the past few years.  we learned that hyundai and kia are actually sister companies as hyundai has owned a majority share in kia since 1998.  hyundai and kia share r&d facilities but have separate design and marketing departments and production facilities.  essentially, these companies can cut many of the expenses that places them at a significant advantage to other car manufacturers.  additionally, the plant we went to is located 10 miles from the port and thus provides a significant cost savings for the company.  the plants in south korea produce cars for the local market and globally.  however, they do have plants in other locations around the world.  in the plant we visited, they made three models (similar to toyota).

kia is a very fast growing company with double digit growth in cars sold over the past 5+ years.  a majority of their growth has been overseas (except south america due to recent taxes imposed in brazil).  kia is now a top 100 brand according to interbrand (and they were very proud of this fact).  kia's slogan is "the power to surprise" and surprise they did.  after the intro talk and a tour of their showroom (electronic visitor book pic included), we had lunch in their cafeteria, a tour of their production facility (huge! and we got to go on the floor, right next to the workers) and then around their test track.  they even gave us model cars as gifts.  note: we were not allowed to take pictures at production facility or on the track.

some (clearly not all) differences between the toyota and kia production facilities that i noticed:1. kia mass produces cars and holds inventory whereas toyota has a just in time system
2. kia production line is more manual than toyota.  i assume this will have to change with time as kia produces more and more cars
3. kia has a racetrack (we actually got to drive around it) in which they test all of their cars where as toyota tests their cars' acceleration and brake system indoors

i am sure i have bored you with information on kia, but it was really interesting!  i want to see other car manufacturers now!