Machine That Changed the World - Hardcover

Roos, Daniel; Massachusetts Institute Of Technology

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892563508 ISBN 13: 9780892563500

Publisher: Scribner, 1990

Synopsis

Today, the industrial world is experiencing the most revolutionary change since Henry Ford's assembly line -- which forever changed the way things are made. Japanese companies are sweeping the world, as Western companies and governments struggle to find ways to emulate them. The Machine That Changed the World points for the first time to a positive way out of this dilemma. It shows that being defeatist about the Japanese threat, and tougher protectionism, are not the answers. This book outlines the enormous tasks facing Western companies in the 1990s and has cogent messages for Japanese firms as well, as they move abroad. The Machine That Changed the World is based on the largest and most thorough study ever undertaken in any industry: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology five-million-dollar, five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program's study of the worldwide auto industry. Twice in this century the auto industry has changed our most fundamental ideas about how to make things. Now it is doing it again. Just as mass production swept away craft production, so a new way of making things, called lean production, is now rapidly making mass production obsolete. Lean production is the Japanese secret weapon in the industrial wars and is spreading throughout the world. If Western companies and their managers and workers are to survive in the 1990s, they must learn and adapt to lean production. Some of the smartest already have begun to do so. Lean production welds the activities of everyone from top management to line workers, to suppliers, into a tightly integrated whole that can respond almost instantly to marketing demands from consumers. It can also double production and quality, while keeping costs down. Its adoption, as it inevitably spreads beyond the auto industry, will change almost every industry and consequently how we work, how we live, and the fate of companies and nations as they respond to its impact. In clear and compelling terms, this book explains what lean production is, and its global implications for all of us.

About this title

Review:

"The fundamentals of this system are applicable to every industry across the globe . . . [and] will have a profound impact on human society--it will truly change the world."-- "New York Times Magazine""A revealing and compellingly readable account of Japan's achievemnt in revolutionizing manufacturing . . . An eye-opener even for those who already knew Japan didn't do it all with robots."-- "Financial Times"The best current book on the changes reshaping manufacturing and the most readable."-- "Business Week

Synopsis:

A report of worldwide significance, based on a co-operative venture between MIT and the world's largest car makers from three continents. This book describes the volatile trends that will shape the motor industry of the future, and profoundly affect both business practice of manufacturing enterprises around the globe and the balance of power between East and West. The authors show in detail how Japan's innovative "lean production" methods work, why the Japanese are beating Western manufacturing, and how, through international co-operation, some of this erosion can be impaired in the future. Despite conventional doom-and-gloom wisdom, the book paints a portrait of an industry regenerating itself in a global market.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0892563508
• ISBN 13: 9780892563500
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 340