Japanese automobile manufacturing in an American setting

The growing force of Japanese manufacturing in the automobile industry is analyzed in its postwar formative stages, its export surges during the oil shortages of the last decade, and the current start-up of assembly plants in the United States. The immigrant plants demonstrate a new successful operating paradigm which revolves around a cooperative compact with labor and continuous innovation in cost and quality control work routines. The U.S. factory floor is being transformed under the Japanese paradigm as work responsibility is invested in front-line personnel recruited from the surrounding American locale.