"It's not that bad now,"says Jim Wiseman, vice president of external affairs for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, Inc. (TMMNA), Erlanger, Ky., "The industry is on pace to have a sales year of more than 16 million in the U.S., which is still one of the best ever. Our sales experienced a sharp downturn in the days immediately following Sept. 11, but bounced back quickly, and were only down 4 percent from what we projected at the start of the year for September."
      Even more important, Toyota's plans aren't stuck in first gear.
      "Plans are in motion now that will enable us to up our production capacity in North America to 1.45 million vehicles per year starting in 2003, from 1.1 million in 2000," says Wiseman. Those plans include a $220 million investment in Huntsville, Ala., a CA$200 million expansion of the Cambridge, Ont., plant, and the total investment of $950 million in the company's Buffalo, W. Va., engine plant; Toyota's first such operation outside Japan.
      "Our direct investment in North American manufacturing is more than $10 billion and growing at a rate of around 10 percent a year," says Wiseman. "I don't know how long that will last, of course. But we continue to expand the market, and you can expect the capacity to continue to grow. "
      As Wiseman's outlook reflects, projects and expansions are still going forward, driven by the positive assurance that's always characterized the industry, albeit a confidence tempered with cold caution. While the terms of daily life and business all seem to have suddenly changed, suffice it to say that, in site selection negotiations, there's no zero percent financing.
      Most everyone concedes that the United States is now in full recession. Yet a fall post-terror survey of 230 members by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) found that only 43 percent feel that their local economies are in recession. Just as citizens of every stripe are finding themselves staying home a lot more, some manufacturers are feeling not-so-global, too. But, that isn't necessarily dousing all the fires of opportunity. Where some companies are having to lay off workers, others are seeing the perfect time to expand and put that skilled local labor to good use, filling in the gaps in an evolving supply chain ever bent on continuous improvement.