I grew up near Longbridge in Birmingham, where British Leyland, the bastion of the British motor industry, was based. BL had over 40% of the UK market at its
height, and yet in the 1970s we watched it be ripped apart by industrial
strife. In the end it went bust, unable
to cope with the corrosion of conflict.
At around the same time, the UK market was being penetrated by Japanese imports from companies like Nissan and Toyota. The new cars were cheaper and better equipped. They were the product of new ways of manufacturing. For example, the ToyotaProduction System (TPS) was based on respect, improvement and mutual influence. It drove standards of quality and efficiency up in a way that the incumbent UK car industry could not meet. Ironically, when these techniques were introduced to new UK plants they were as successful as they had been in Japan. The Nissan plant in NE England is one of the most productive in the world. The key was in the collaborative approach which underpinned TPS and which today is manifest in lean management.