TABLE OF CONTENTS I cannot understand why people are frightened of new ideas I m afraid of the old ones.
John Cage, composer [1.]
Over the last century, the automobile has ingrained itself in society and in daily life. The industry that Peter Drucker called the industry of industries 50 years ago [2.] is even more prominent today in terms of employment and economic impact. [3.] However, the industry is also notoriously slow to embrace change. In 1950, some predicted that at the start of the new millennium cars would leave the road and take to the air. As far back as 1970, General Motors had designed a fuel-cell vehicle. But today cars still travel on roads, and in many ways little has changed between Carl Benz s prototype of 1886 and today s offerings. The vast majority of cars are still propelled by internal-combustion engines, and structurally a car is still a metal box on wheels, much like what the Fisher-Budd Company produced for the Dodge brothers in 1914. [4.] In the same tradition, manufacturing and distribution strategies have changed little from their ancestors that governed manufacturing a century ago.
By no means do we wish to discredit the very real productivity and quality improvements at the many factories around the world that have made the transition to lean production. But even factory-level improvement must be brought in line with the overarching goal of a systemically efficient and responsive value grid. Otherwise, any change can backfire. The auto industry has been the...
