EKU and Toyota enter partnership to improve plant workspaces

An Eastern Kentucky University student’s capstone project is leading to a partnership between the school and Kentucky’s Toyota plants.

The automotive giant will be working with the college’s Manufacturing Engineering and Doctor of Occupational Therapy programs to make their Kentucky plants safer and more efficient.

That comes after Toyota leadership worked with therapy program student Madeline Spears on her final project on improving assembly line safety.

Spears says she analyzed workstations to make them more ergonomic and wheelchair accessible.

“It is a really repetitive, manual task, so I was working on reducing the risk for those musculoskeletal injuries, and I'm really happy with the way that the project turned out,” Spears said.

Mark Klee is the head of Toyota's Georgetown plant, and helped Spears with the project. He says the partnership will help students solve real world problems.

“It's a great chance to just really work with students that you know, maybe haven't had so much exposure to industry, and plug them into what our issues are at Toyota and the things that we're working to resolve,” Klee said.

Toyota shared Spears’ findings with their engineers. They’ll also be included in EKU’s curriculum going forward.

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