Question

How did the Japanese become so successful in global trade automobile industry 1970s and 80s

Answer 1

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was hard to see how Japan could rise to the top of the automotive world. After the Second World War, the Japanese car industry was crippled by the destruction of the nation's infrastructure and weak demand. Toyota almost went bankrupt in 1949. In 1950, its production was limited to 300 vehicles.Back then, Japanese car makers were known mainly for their habit of ripping off designs from other manufacturers. Toyota's first passenger car, the 1936 Model AA, was a blatant copy of Dodge and Chevrolet designs, and some parts could actually be interchanged with the originals.

In 1957, Toyota set up a California headquarters that would turn out to be its North American beach head. A year later, the first Toyota was registered in California. By 1975, Toyota was top import brand in the United States, surpassing Volkswagen.

Japan's rise to automotive pre-eminence was based on several key strengths, including focus, consistency and detail-oriented engineering. Japanese auto makers were known for producing reliable cars with well-executed details. What they weren't famous for was design flair, innovative marketing and driving passion. Britain was renowned for stylistic masterpieces such as the Jaguar E-Type and the Lotus 49. Germany was the spiritual home of automotive performance, thanks to Porsche and BMW. The United States invented aspirational marketing.

But Japan systematically borrowed the best ideas from each of these countries, while simultaneously addressing their weaknesses: Japan replaced Britain's flaky electrical systems with solid, well-engineered products from suppliers such as Nippondenso. Japan studied Germany's superb mechanical designs and installed them in cars that the average consumer could afford. And Japan borrowed the best parts of Detroit marketing – such as a tiered model system that encouraged buyers to spend more for essentially the same car – but lowered production costs by limiting the range of choices. In the mid-1960s, a Detroit order sheet could run to a dozens pages or more, creating a logistical nightmare for factories that had to build cars that could be ordered with a nearly infinite mix of colours and options. Japanese manufacturers fixed the problem by offering two or three preset option packages and restricting colour choices.
By the late 1970s, Japan was making serious inroads in North America, even though the domestic car industry was protected by tariff walls. The conversion of knowledgeable car buffs such as my father was the beginning of a wholesale shift that made Japanese cars the preferred choice.

Critical to the Japanese success in auto manufacturing was that managers such as Toyota’s Ohno did not accept U.S. practices as the only viable way to produce automobiles and did not believe that U.S. firms had reached their limits in capital and worker productivity, quality, or inventory turnover. There was nothing mysterious or miraculous about what Toyota and other Japanese automakers accomplished in manufacturing. They responded to specific market conditions, creatively applying techniques first developed in the U.S. in new ways. Ultimately, by seeking a better solution to a fundamental problem, the Japanese set new standards of efficiency and started a revolution in manufacturing theory and practice that has yet to end. While companies and management-labor relations have evolved differently in the U.S., the unique quality of Japanese workers in Japan can no longer be used as an excuse in the U.S. for a lack of efficiency, innovation, and improvement in manufacturing.