Product Development

7 Manufacturing the New Product

Manufacturing has seen incredible changes over the last 40 years. This is due to many considerations:

• Foreign competition – in both product quality, product costs, and retail pricing
• More advanced products require more advanced manufacturing processes
• Customer demand is driving efficiency and quality
• New advances in manufacturing technology.

In the 1980s and 1990s, US car manufacturers were losing market share to high-quality cars made in Japan. The Japanese cars also cost less. In fact, everything made in Japan seemed invincible: electronics such as TVs, computers, and stereo systems; heavy equipment corresponding to tractors, pumps, cranes, cars and trucks, turbine-generators for electric power production and many other high-dollar equipment. The United States seemed to be losing ground to Japan on almost all industrial fronts. Economists were extolling the virtues of the Japanese “system” and university professors (Peter Drucker among them) were writing books on Japanese management and manufacturing techniques and wondering if we could “copy” their efficiency and processes. As a result, many factories were laying off workers or closing. Some were attempting to mimic the Japanese way with Kanban, Just-in-Time parts delivery, and Quality Circles. They were seemingly helpless to compete.

The balance of trade with Japan became so large that many Japanese firms recognized they would need to build manufacturing facilities in the US. This served ...