The Japanese Auto Industry an Overview
Japan is a major player in the world's automotive industry. At this writing, 14 different makes of car hail from this country, and some brands have virtually become household names, such as Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Mazda and Nissan. This certainly was not always the case. Although a few largely-forgotten cars were built on Japanese soil as far back as the early 1900s, production in that country really didn't take off until after the Second World War.
TheJapanese auto industry'sfirst postwar cars didn't go over so well. For the most part, the cars were imitations of American makes, but quite outdated. By the 1950s, Japanese exports improved somewhat, but were still no match for other foreign makes that entered the US market, particularly the Volkswagen Beetle. In fact, many American car buyers regarded Japanese cars as cheap and flimsy mass-produced junk. The founders of Honda and Toyota had a vision to not only match America's Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) in quality and reliability, but to surpass it. This would be accomplished by means of originality and utmost efficiency. This objective took some time, but it was undeniably reached by the 1980s. Not only did American consumers finally take notice of superior Japanese workmanship and reliability, but so did much of the rest of the world. In fact, domestic sales began to slip as more American consumers switched to better-built Japanese brands, and eventually Detroit's Big Three were pleading with people to "buy American."
The Japanese homefront was quite different from that of America, and as a result, so was the strategy in manufacturing cars. From the 1950s through the 1970s, fewer Japanese were interested in buying cars. As in many parts of Europe, Japanese roads were narrower, and thus smaller cars were built as opposed to behemoth 400-plus horsepower "muscle cars" or the gigantic, tail-finned Cadillac-sized models that people on this side of the Pacific largely preferred. In short, American carmakers concentrated on producing a high volume of a limited number of brands while the Japanese focused on the opposite: producing smaller numbers of many models.
The Japanese may have been late to the party in regard to building cars, but unlike their American counterparts, they always looked ahead. They invested heavily in technology and infrastructure, and the American auto industry eventually fell behind. Management at Toyota adoped a "just in time," or "kanban" ( in Japanese) system of maintaining inventory. This eliminated waste and thus reduced production costs. Eventually, other Japanese carmakers followed suit. Toyota also pioneered the concept of "kaizen," or self-improvement paired with continuous learning. Essentially, everyone from the assembly-line worker to suppliers and management is taught to challenge and question their own assumptions by gaining first-hand experience in resolving problems. The truth hurts, but conversely, in the decades preceding the onset of the 21st century, American autoworkers were more interested in that weekly paycheck and cutting corners to speed up quitting time.
In fact, there used to be a saying for those that were interested in buying an American-made car, and it went something like this:
"Only buy an American car if it was built on a Wednesday."
The reason? The stereotype of American assembly line workers was as follows: They were too hung over on Monday and Tuesday to concentrate on quality. Likewise, by Thursday and Friday, they were looking forward to the upcoming weekend, so once again, quality was compromised. On the other hand, a Japanese automaker would put 20 hours in each day, if necessary, until a problem was resolved.
But then somethinghappened.
One could say it was inevitable, but the American automakers are catching up, and domestic quality is now vastly improved. European car manufacturers are narrowing this figurative gap as well. South Korean cars have really improved over the past decade and could see huge jumps in sales because they have lower price points than the Japanese and now nearly the same quality.In the meantime, a horrible tsunami and earthquake hit Japan in 2011 and seriously crippled the country's auto production. Toyota surpassed General Motors as the world's largest automaker a few years back, but following the natural disasters, the company has slipped behind General motors once again, and German automaker Volkswagen is threatening to supass both auto giants within the next few years. Moreover, the "just in time" method of maintaining inventory has now become standard practice among all the major players in the auto industry.
As stated above, Japan remains a major contender in worldwide auto production, but will their "kaizen" philosophy be enough to keep them on top, or will their throne be toppled? Stay tuned.
