The Ford Motor Corporation has always been regarded as a world leader from pioneering mass production to being one of the first car manufacturers to build overseas assembly plants. Ford Europe, founded in 1967, proved the value of the overseas strategy and in the 1980s its profits offset US...

For many BMW drivers, owning a BMW is about much more than merely owning a form of transport. The BMW name has become a symbol of quality, efficiency and engineering expertise which has inspired a loyal customer base throughout the world. BMW’s long‐standing marketing message has been simply...

While “category killers” have been a major retailing force in many product categories for nearly a generation, only recently has the concept extended to the retail used‐car market. Discusses several aspects of these “super automotive category killers (SACKs),” including why they...

The Korean auto industry of less than ten years ago was quite different from today. Then it relied heavily on technology and one company, selling one model in one export market. Today, the market concentration strategy has been abandoned and the international business strategy is in a period of...

Rover Group is the UK’s largest automotive manufacturer employing 35,000 people which designs, develops and manufactures vehicles in the small, medium, executive and specialist four‐wheel‐drive sectors. Describes the processes deployed at Rover to ensure that quality and reliability are...

Identifies radical changes made by one organization in production principles and managerial issues behind the production system design, over a time period of 25 years. Finds that managerial perspectives moved away from a focus on handling problems (although with visions of work organization), to...

Lean logistics refers to the superior ability to design and administer systems to control movement and geographical positioning of raw materials, work‐in‐process, and finished inventories at the lowest cost. This study takes a novel view by comparing the practices used by automotive...

Within the contexts of globalization, rationalization and modularization, this article seeks to explore why Ford Europe performed so badly in the second half of the 1990s, sustaining heavy losses and falling market share. The causes of this are deep‐rooted and are traced to poor model...

Reviews the strategic position of Daimler‐Benz in the light of its move from automotive to integrated transporting company, defence contractor and consumer appliances manufacturer. Focuses particularly on the Mercedes‐Benz arm, now facing fierce competition from Japanese carmakers in the...

Most companies have attempted a significant number of improvement initiatives such as total quality, re‐engineering, restructuring and teams, with very mixed success. In many cases these initiatives have been adopted without being part of an improvement strategy, but as part of a series of ad...