We recently undertook the largest in-depth evaluation ever of automobile assemblyplants around the world. In the Second Round of the International Assembly Plant Study, wesurveyed 88 automobile assembly plants representing 20 companies and as many nations (see figure 1 for a distribution of...

Toyota and Volvo have traditionally been viewed as anchoring two extremes of production models that companies in the automotive and other manufacturing sectors draw upon. The ‘Toyota (Lean) Production System’ drove superior organizational learning, innovation, and control with positive...

Vehicle supply has traditionally been based on forecast-driven production, and a large fraction of cars has been sold from stock—a practice which incurs considerable cost in terms of stock holding and sales incentives. Derived from successes in other industries, the benefits of responsive...

Process improvement methods –such as Lean, Six Sigma and Agile– have been widely studied, and we know what tools work, and where. Yet our longitudinal study of 204 improvement projects shows that one year into a successful implementation about half of all projects backslide. After two years,...