British Journal zyxwvuts of Management, Vol. 7, Special Issue, S29-S44 (March 1996) zyxw Lean Production Practices: International Comparisons in the Auto Components Industry’ zy Nick Oliver, Rick Delbridge* and James Lowe* University of Cambridge, Judge Institute of Management Studies, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 lAG, UK and *Cardiff Business School, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF1 3EU, UK In recent years the application of lean production principles has been forcefully ex- pounded as the route to high-performance manufacturing. This paper examines the relationship between lean production and performance empirically, using data from a benchmarking study of 71 plants in the international automotive components industry. The top performing plants (and their suppliers and customers) showed consistently better process control than did the lower performing plants. UK plants did not perform very well zyxwvut in terms of either quality or productivity, and links between economic context and manufacturing performance are discussed in relation to the UK. The decline of the UKs share of world markets in manufactured goods has been long-lamented. Between 1950 and the mid-1980s the UK share of world trade in manufactured goods declined from about 25 per cent to a mere 8 per cent (Kirby, 1991). This decline stands in sharp contrast to the rise of other economies, particularly that of Japan. From a base of virtually zero, the Japanese now command about 30 per cent of the world market for vehicles, and over 80 per cent of the world market for some products, such as video record- ers and 35mm cameras (BBUOU, 1986). The two starkly contrasting trajectories of the UK and Japan have led many UK academics, industrialists and policy makers to look to Japan in search of the secret of economic success. Many explanations for Japan’s success have been put zyxwv ‘ The data on which this paper are based are drawn from the World- Wide Manufacturing Competitiveness survey. The authors gratefully acknowledgethe support of Andersen Consulting, and the contributions of Betty Thayer, Dan Jones, Isabelle Dostaler, Gillian Hunter, Nick Rich, Sandra Rutherford, Paul Ryan and Gianni Zappala to this project. forward, including corporate paternalism (Dore, 1973),unfair trading practices (Wolfe, 1985), rela- tions between firms (Sako, 1992) and economic structures in Japan (Ackroyd ef af., 1988; Dore, 1986). Despite the potential relevance of all these factors to the performance of the major Japanese corporations, the vast majority of attention in the UK has focused on how the Japanese run their manufacturing operations, with particular inter- est being shown in practices such as just-in-time production and total quality control. Several sur- veys have reported the widespread adoption of these methods across the UK (Voss and Robinson, 1987; Ingersoll Engineers, 1990; Oliver and Wilkinson, 1992). Most recently, the term ‘lean production’ has emerged as a popular label to describe the approach to manufacturing found in Japan in its purest form at the Toyota Motor Company (Womack, Jones and Roos, 1990). The basic principles of lean production are sum- marized in Figure 1. These principles find expression in a distinct set of practices found both inside the factory and along the supply chain. Inside the factory, lean producers are characterized by just-in-time z 0 1996 British Academy of Management