1958-9 Toyopet Loaded for Export to U.S. |
Japanese Automobiles Come in a Big Way to
America
As James Flink stated
in The Automobile Age, organizational
structures, policy programs and conscious planning were key to the success of
the Japanese auto industry. [1] In this case, government served as the
promoter of the industry. At the heart of the success story is the Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI), created in 1949 to protect certain
industries from foreign competition so that home industries could be
competitive abroad. This was achieved by eliminating foreign competition from
the domestic market. To this day, American cars in Japan are more curiosities
than staples of transportation. Competition among Japanese firms was
discouraged, and thus economies of scale resulted. With low wages and Union
cooperation after 1953, the Japanese had a key initial advantage in their quest
to penetrate American shores. But given their reputation for shoddy products,
could they make cars that Americans would buy?
While the Japanese
made mostly military vehicles before WWII, the first seeds of its future growth
were linked to supplying the American military during the Korean War. David
Halberstam elegantly traces the emergence of the Japanese automobile industry
in The Reckoning.[2]
His story features a host of remarkable and powerful personalities, but perhaps
two Americans were as critical as any in shaping the Japanese automobile
industry. Prior to WWII, American engineer William R. Gorham played a key role
in setting up the first factories and promoted a distinctive manufacturing
philosophy. After 1945, statistical quality control expert W. Edwards Deming,
instilled a passion for quality at a time when American automobile executives
seemingly cared less.
Deming's
14 Points, articulated in Out of the
Crisis, served as management guidelines that were embraced by the Japanese.[3] The application of these
points resulted in a more efficient workplace, higher profits, and increased
productivity. They included the following:
- Create and
communicate to all employees a statement of the aims and purposes of the
company.
- Adapt to
the new philosophy of the day; industries and economics are always
changing.
- Build
quality into a product throughout production.
- End the
practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone; instead,
try a long-term relationship based on established loyalty and trust.
- Work to
constantly improve quality and productivity.
- Institute
on-the-job training.
- Teach and
institute leadership to improve all job functions.
- Drive out
fear; create trust.
- Strive to
reduce intradepartmental conflicts.
- Eliminate
exhortations for the work force; instead, focus on the system and morale.
- Eliminate
work standard quotas for production. Substitute leadership methods for
improvement.
- Remove
barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship
- Educate
with self-improvement programs.
- Include
everyone in the company to accomplish the transformation.
While the
14 points made for great publicity during the 1980s, statistical analysis was
the key to Deming’s management methods. It was this merging of the quantitative
with quality that made Japanese production methods so effective, with the
result that “Made in Japan” meant goods of the highest precision and quality.
But the Japanese have to be given credit for their efforts as well. At Toyota,
lean manufacturing was pioneered after WWII. A complex system of ideas that is
well described in James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos’s The Machine that Changed the World, lean
manufacturing involved production, supply, and distribution principles that
included continuous improvement with just-in-time inventories.[4] Deming’s ideas did not
enter Japan in a vacuum, however. Toyoda’s culture, for example, was greatly
influenced by Sakichi Toyoda, its founder.
19th century British self-help author Samuel Smiles had an
enormous impact on Sakichi; in particular Smile’s emphasis in his writings on
the authority of time. K. Dennis Chambers has argued that for Smiles – and
Toyoda – “Almost everything else is replaceable; time is one commodity that can
be lost forever and never recovered. That truth was to become the central tenet
of the Toyoda family’s search for perfection.”[5]
Beginning in 1958, both Datsun and Toyota began to import vehicles into
the U.S., but the few early models were underpowered and technologically
primitive. By the late 1960s, however,
both quality and performance improved dramatically. The models that exemplified
this transition to competitiveness were the 1965 Toyota Corona, 1969 Datsun
240-Z and the l972 Honda Civic CVCC. The Corona proved to be remarkably well
built at a time when the quality of vehicles coming from Detroit was lagging.
The Datsun 240-Z became a favorite among sports car enthusiasts, especially
displacing British Triumphs and MGs, and the Honda Civic offered no-nonsense,
reliable, efficient, and environmentally clean transportation.
The meteoric rise in Japanese
imports to the US during the late 1960s and early 1970s is best reflected in
the following table:[6]
Year
|
Toyota
|
Nissan
|
Honda
|
Mazda
|
Mitsubishi
|
Subaru
|
1965
|
2,986
|
13,201
|
--
|
--
|
--
|
--
|
1966
|
17,423
|
21,037
|
--
|
--
|
--
|
--
|
1967
|
36,013
|
33.275
|
---
|
--
|
--
|
--
|
1968
|
71,846
|
40,760
|
9
|
--
|
--
|
2,884
|
1969
|
127,018
|
60,872
|
51
|
--
|
--
|
2,406
|
1970
|
196,749
|
104,067
|
4,159
|
2,083
|
--
|
5,591
|
1971
|
294,850
|
188,029
|
12,509
|
19,630
|
28,381
|
14,162
|
1972
|
295,915
|
192,707
|
20,500
|
57,850
|
34,057
|
24,056
|
1973
|
289,378
|
235,449
|
38,931
|
119,003
|
35,523
|
37,793
|
1974
|
238,135
|
189,026
|
43,119
|
61,190
|
42,925
|
22,280
|
1975
|
283,909
|
253,192
|
102,383
|
65,351
|
60,356
|
41,587
|
1976
|
346,920
|
270,103
|
150,929
|
35,383
|
78,972
|
48,928
|
1977
|
493,048
|
338,378
|
223,633
|
50,509
|
121,262
|
80,826
|
1978
|
441,800
|
338,096
|
274,876
|
75,309
|
103,292
|
103,274
|
1979
|
507,816
|
472,252
|
353,291
|
156,533
|
138,053
|
127,871
|
1980
|
582,204
|
516,890
|
375,388
|
161,623
|
129,350
|
142,968
|
To fully understand the rise of the
Japanese industry and its subsequent transitory stagnation post-1990, one must
fully explore the complexities associated with international economics and
monetary policy. The split-community tax, floating yen to dollar values,
tariffs, and import quotas all contributed to Japanese competitiveness in the
American marketplace, along with the inability of American manufacturers to
export to Japan.
[2]
David Halberstam, The Reckoning (New
York: William Morrow, 1986).
[3] W.
Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982).
[4]
James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos, The Machine That Changed the World (New York: Rawson Associates,
1990).
[5] K. Dennis Chambers, Toyota. Greenwood
Press: Westport, CT, 2008, pp.18-20.
[6]From C.S. Chang, The Japanese Auto Industry and the U. S. Market, New York, Praeger,
1981. P.204. Data taken from The Automotive News.
[7] On the history and operation of EFI, see
http://bestride.com/blog/top-automotive-innovations-history-of-fuel-injection/2780/Fuel
Injection, accessed 2/14/16; “A Short History of Fuel Injection,” http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/fuel-injection.cfm, 2/14/16; http://members.rennlist.com/pbanders/djetfund.htm, accessed 2/14/16.
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