The Origin of Competitive Strength : Fifty Years of the Auto Industry in Japan and the U.S.

When the war ended on August IS, 1945, I was a naval engineering cadet at the Kure Navy Yard near Hiroshima, Japan. A week later, I was demobi­ lized and returned to my home in Tokyo, fortunate not to find it ravaged by firebombing. At the beginning of September, a large contingent of the Ameri­ can occupation forces led by General Douglas MacArthur moved its base from Yokohama to Tokyo. Near my home I watched a procession of American mili­ tary motor vehicles snaking along Highway 1. This truly awe-inspiring cavalcade included jeeps, two-and-a-half-ton trucks, and enormous trailers mounted with tanks and artillery. At the time, I was a 21-year-old student in the Machinery Section of Engineering at the Tokyo Imperial University. Watching that mag­ nificent parade of military vehicles, I was more than impressed by the gap in industrial strength between Japan and the U. S. That realization led me to devote my whole life to the development of the Japanese auto industry. I wrote a small article concerning this incident in Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun (one of the leading business newspapers in Japan) on May 2, 1983. The English translation of this story was carried in the July 3, 1983 edition of the Topeka Capital-Journal and the September 13, 1983 issue of the Asian Wall Street Journal. The Topeka Capital-Journal headline read, "MacArthur's Jeeps Were the Toyota Catalyst. Front Matter....Pages N4-xxix Prologue....Pages 1-21 Toyota Moves into the Fast Lane....Pages 23-59 A Flagship Car....Pages 61-84 Management of the Automobile Industries in Japan and the U.S. in the Postwar Period....Pages 85-110 The Success of NUMMI....Pages 111-128 GM’s Tough Fight....Pages 129-155 The Rebirth of GM....Pages 157-192 Lean Production and the Challenge to the “World Car”....Pages 193-216 Epilogue....Pages 217-243 Addendum....Pages 245-261 Back Matter....Pages 263-278 The Origin of Competitive Strength looks back on 50 years of automobile manufacturing in Japan and the United States, with special insights comparing Toyota Motor Corporation and General Motors. This work examines the mechanisms of a once-invincible U.S. automotive industry that lost its competitive edge as new Japanese companies experienced significant growth, and poses questoins about the true nature of competitive strength in the auto industry and among its leading corporations