It is Time to Change the Vision of the Automobile World

 A large number of American and European carmakers, impressed by the results of Japanese transplantation in their own countries, did not hesitate long to declare their adherence to the Japanese school of management.
However, with an ironic twist - one that only history can offer - at precisely that same moment, conditions that had provided for Japanese success changed, and slowly but surely one began to see the diversity of industrial models in Japan, along with their limits and viability.

The "system that was going to change the world", according to the French version's title of the MIT book, revealed itself to be incapable of freeing the country from economic crisis. The results of Japanese carmakers, insufficiently analyzed in the past, clearly took different paths during the 1990s with, on the one hand, Toyota and Honda, and on the other hand, Nissan, Mazda and Mitsubishi. Toyota had to submit to being controlled by Renault, Honda was definitively swallowed up by Ford, and the third firm is still looking for a solution. Toyota and Honda, whose production systems and profit strategy appear to be completely different, are not able to escape from encountering large-scale difficulties and fundamental revisions in order to renew with previous profitability levels.

Have Japanese carmakers, previously drunk with success, forgotten the essential principles of lean production? Have their American and European disciples achieved better results than "the master"? Does "modular production", granting success to a number of American and European firms, explain these results? This is what we are hearing here and there, however all this appears to be quite improbable.

As you know, GERPISA has always doubted that a universal one best way exists. This is due to the fact that industrial model dynamics, national income, growth and distributive modes, and international relations all serve to regularly re-heterogenize market and labor conditions within different areas in the world. The results GERPISA has obtained through our international research programs are now allowing us to offer another means of comprehension and analysis of previous evolutions, to outline the economic and social conditions for profitability, and to imagine a much larger future than the one announced ten years ago, one that can be summed up in the periphrase, The World that Changed the Machine.

During our June conference, those intervening in our first sessions (firm directors, union members and activists, university researchers, researchers working outside of our network, institutional representatives) will be invited to offer their analysis of the past decade in light of initial previsions and beliefs, as well as their reactions to GERPISA's analysis schema.
In order to prepare for the conference, you may find a new column in this issue that is called, quite precisely, "The World that Changed the Machine" wherein, month after month, we will present aspects of our analysis schema. This month, we begin with the topic "Conditions for Profitability".