The Second Century: Reconnecting Customer and Value Chain through Build-to-Order; Moving beyond Mass and Lean Production in the Auto Industry - Hardcover

Holweg, Matthias; Pil, Frits K.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262083329 ISBN 13: 9780262083324

Publisher: Mit Pr, 2004

Synopsis

As the auto industry moves into its second century, it suffers from low margins and a sclerotic value chain that cannot evolve with customer desires. Inventories of many weeks pile up on dealer lots and at distribution centers around the world while executives applaud marginal improvements in factory efficiency.Value streams based on Henry Ford's mass-production model from the early 1900s do not deliver the strategic flexibility that is needed in today's increasingly competitive and demanding market. With billions of potential product variations, customers still compromise by selecting from a limited number of products sitting at dealerships or at distribution centers. Those customers who dare insist on a specific variation not only wait weeks but also pay extra for the privilege of telling vehicle manufacturers what they actually want.In The Second Century, Matthias Holweg and Frits Pil provide a comprehensive look at today's dysfunctional value-chain strategies, then systematically discuss the changes in products and in processes that are needed to bring about responsiveness to customer needs through build-to-order. They look beyond the dealer, the factory and the design studio to examine the web of relationships and dynamics that have brought the auto industry to its current low point.Holweg and Pil argue that in this century the winners will not be those firms that search for larger and larger scale or those who run efficient factories, or those that squeeze the last drop of profitability from their suppliers. The winners, they say, will be those who build products as if customers mattered.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"The second automotive century is driven by the customer. An inspiring book that illustrates how firms need to be both lean and smart."
--Yoshio Ishizaka, Executive Vice President, Toyota Motor Corporation

"Becoming more responsive to customer wishes is a major challenge for an industry as complex as the auto industry. This is the most comprehensive analysis of the case for build-to-order to date."
--Daniel T. Jones, Founder and Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy UK, coauthor of *The Machine that Changed the World* and *Lean Thinking*

"A comprehensive analysis of the drivers - and inhibitors - of the performance of entire value chains. Holweg and Pil draw on over a decade of research and a unique data set. They demonstrate that well-intentioned programs of manufacturing reform, implemented in isolation, can create 'islands of excellence' - but may do so at the expense of the responsiveness and profitability of the whole value chain. A vital follow-up to *The Machine that Changed the World*."
--Nick Oliver, Professor, Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge

About the Author

Frits K. Pil is Assistant Professor at the Katz Graduate School of Business and a Research Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0262083329
• ISBN 13: 9780262083324
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 238