Honda of America has developed a comprehensive approach to teaching the principles of leanproduction to its suppliers. The centerpiece of these efforts is a program called BP (for "Best process","Best Performance", "Bs Practice"), in which a crossfunctional team of personel born Honda and...

Hon& of America has developed a comprehensive approach to teaching the principles of leanproduction to its suppliers. The centerpiece of these efforts is a program called BP (for ?Best process?,?Best Performance ?, ?Bs Practice?), in which a crossfunctional team of persomel born Honda and...

Export Pioneers in Latin America analyzes a series of case studies of successful new export activities throughout the region to learn how pioneers jump-start a virtuous process leading to economic transformation. The cases of blueberries in Argentina, avocados in Mexico, and aircraft in Brazil...

Export Pioneers in Latin America analyzes a series of case studies of successful new export activities throughout the region to learn how pioneers jump-start a virtuous process leading to economic transformation. The cases of blueberries in Argentina, avocados in Mexico, and aircraft in Brazil...

Over the last 20 years, the success of Japanese manufacturing firms has brought renewed attention to the importance of cost reduction on existing products as a source of productivity growth. This paper uses survey data and field interviews from the auto supply industry to explore the...

Using an original data source, this paper investigates the circumstances under which firms adopt computer numerical control (CNC), an important type of flexible automation which can significantly increase productivity, product variety and quality. The paper shows that arms'-length...

We recently undertook the largest in-depth evaluation ever of automobile assemblyplants around the world. In the Second Round of the International Assembly Plant Study, wesurveyed 88 automobile assembly plants representing 20 companies and as many nations (see figure 1 for a distribution of...

This paper uses case studies of shop-floor problem-solving at three automotive assembly plants to examine organizational influences on process quality improvement. Three complex quality problems - water leaks, paint defects, and electrical defects - were chosen because they are universally found...

The paper views migration of skills from a perspective of new industrial policy. It introduces two types of search networks: open migration chains and diaspora networks. Migration chains are sequences of educational or job opportunities which allows a migrant to move to progressively complex...