Japan and the Global Automotive Industry

by Koichi Shimokawa

• ISBN13: 9780521866873
• ISBN10: 0521866871
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Japanese automotive industry enjoyed spectacular success in the 1980s. This was largely due to the so-called 'Lean Production System' - the combination of an efficient production system, an effective supplier system, and a product development system. In the 1990s the industry fell on hard times because of the Japanese asset price bubble and extreme currency appreciation. In this book, eminent industry specialist Koichi Shimokawa draws on his thirty years of research and fieldwork with Japanese and American firms, to show how the Japanese automotive industry has managed to recover from this difficult period. He shows how firms like Toyota were able to transfer Japanese systems to overseas plants and how they have changed in order to compete in increasingly globalized markets. In addition, the book also addresses the two major challenges to the current industry model: the rise of China and the environmental and energy supply situation.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. vii
List of tables	p. x
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Comparing productivity of the Japanese and US automobile industries	p. 8
The internationalization of the Japanese automotive industry and local production overseas	p. 57
The recovery of European and US auto makers, and relocating and changing lean production	p. 83
Early 1990s - the Japanese automotive industry loses international competitiveness, and the development of restructuring strategies	p. 92
The restructuring of the global automotive and auto-parts industries	p. 135
The restructuring of the world's auto-parts industry and the transfiguration of the keiretsu parts transaction	p. 167
Global M&A and the future of the global auto industry - the light and dark sides of merger and re-alignment	p. 203
The Asian and ASEAN automotive industries in the global era	p. 230
China's automotive industry in the global era, Japanese auto makers, and their China strategies	p. 260
Conclusion - the global automotive industry's perspective on the twenty-first century and tasks for the Japanese automotive industry	p. 294
Epilogue	p. 314
Index	p. 317
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