The entire Lexus line.

 

What mzgp5x says and if the information is at least half right.

I have said all along and it bears mention again after you read this:
the people and companies that are Japanese do what they do for one thing, the betterment of Japan. It is a pride they work on in every aspect of their culture in everything they do. As pointed out by mzgp5x in some small ways. Japan does this for no reason but to establish a dominant role in the Auto industry the likes have never seen before with Toyota taking the lead. Japan is creating an empire through commerce and it is strategically positioning itself in our boarders. This is a takeover of who we are. America is the crown jewel of that industry and we are blindly giving it away. We have lost our pride in what made our auto industry great. We don't care we say it does not matter.
When in fact it is all part of a plan to do exactly what they are doing. Making sure they are the global leaders in car production INCLUDING the U.S.. How sad is that, a market we created and we cannot control in the next generation? They struck while the iron was hot. They took our concepts and ideas of what "American" car should be and build them. Great a foreign country telling us what to buy for a family car. The advertising is also the great ploy to lure the mass' into thinking its as red white and blue as you and me. Is it?? I ask this cus as stated in Japan it is hard to get any outside product to get in and any that does get in does it sell? Is it as competitive as the homegrown stuff in Japan? No? Why? One explanation Japanese pride themselves on being from Japan. Is that shown here in the U.S.? Do we stand up and say YES WE HAVE A GREAT CAR..no we go to the local import company and proclaim their dominance? Way to support the home team. Ohh this goes far beyond the auto industry. Heck one example the furniture industry where is that made now?? Not in Indiana or Maine. But India and Malaysia. So were going to let another industry slip through our fingers. Cus its okay to set up foreign factories here on our shores. While building that rolled off the first cars for the mass' rot?? That's doing us justice?
I hate to use this analogy but maybe it will get people thinking.

**** Germany was the best of the best at everything produced, you name it they had the best of it, sure we could have just folded and went along with them and their superiority. Why not they were making the best of the best. They were creating an empire with the might they controled. But no we did not. We stood our ground and fought back and won. Our ideal and our steel won the day. Japan has the same mentality but not with bullets and soldiers but with paper and automobiles . build the best of the best and dominate the world. Yet for some reason we think its all right and we let the Trojan horse through the gates. See what I am getting at? And yes the analogy fits, economics and war are the same game played on a different field.

 

Caps94ZODG I Agree with everthing you said.

 

From my experience they force the company, as a whole(employees included), to make better decisions for the company's long term profitablity, not just short term market reactions, since their livelyhoods depend on it. What they lose in time, they make up in quality.
This was a past problem, but has all but been eliminated...there's nothing a hard working, due paying, union member hates more than having to carry a free-loader. I have seen many fired!..
Some "advancements" have not been thoroughly thought out, and the human worker is often underestimated. When you figure in the cost of initial investment, operating costs(energy) and maintenance, replacement parts and downtime, those "advancements" lose their perspective shine.

 

That is a lot of cash flowing out of America.

 

If the UAW fostered such good management decisions; why are GM, Ford and Chrysler in the shape they are in today?

If the UAW is so good for quality; why aren’t all (or at least a majority) of GMs vehicles at the top of JD Power IQS and long-term quality studies and why haven’t they all been there for many years in a row rather than just a few scattered here and there?

Seeking what’s good for the long-term is important but especially in today’s business world, not responding to a problem TODAY will cost you both long-term and short-term and put you right out of business. UAW contracts have forced the domestics to do all kinds of stupid things from a business standpoint simply because the CBAs they signed left them no other options – that’s why you see some manufacturers keeping plants open and producing cars it knows there is no market for simply because that’s less expensive overall than paying people to not work.


Sorry, but I don’t buy it that it was all in the past and isn’t true any longer; I’ve been literally hearing that argument for over 20 years and I find it doubtful that the argument is any more true today than it was then.

If what you’ve said is true then the transplants ought to be knocking on the door of the UAW and asking them to come in and organize their workforce since it ultimately would be better for Toyota, Nissan, Honda and the rest…I don’t think that’s happened yet, however.

I’m not saying that the UAW is the source of all of Detroit’s problems; there are plenty of players in the process that bear responsibility but the UAW has made a significant contribution to the problems and although I hear a lot of lip service form the UAW that they are now enlightened and want to “work with management” I’ve seen little hard evidence of that…I guess we’ll all get to see how enlightened the union has become when they negotiate their next contract (which happens later this year if memory serves).

 

Central Glass came to this country as a joint venture with Ford so I’m not at all sure that your statement that Toyota brought them over is accurate. I don’t know anything personally about “Ogiahra” but I do know that many manufacturers, including Toyota, was buying wiring harness/parts from companies like Kaiser Aluminum because I worked as an IC at Kaiser and saw the part orders.

That aside, you initially said that….
A manufacturer (be it GM or Ford or Honda or Toyota) has literally thousands of suppliers so I can’t help but question the accuracy of your initial assertion that Toyota had brought over “all or most of their parts suppliers here to the U.S.”. I’m sure they’ve brought some but saying they brought all or most is probably a bit of an exaggeration.

As far as your statement that “not many Americans work there” I just find that a bit difficult to believe…I’m sure most of the senior management would be Japanese if the supplier really was “brought over” to the U.S. from Japan but I really doubt that most of the workforce are all Japanese…if a Toyota or Honda was really going to do that then there is really very little benefit to bringing the supplier here at all; far cheaper to simply import the parts.

 

They refused Demings philosiphies for continuous improvement, Statistical Process Control, the Japanese applied it like a Religion! Add to that the "Disposable Car" mentality of the '70s, resting on laurels, and some bad decision makers in the wrong places..you have the kinda short term thinking I'm talking about.
If Unions are the Evil that ends all, why do the Japanese home plants all have them?
Example:




Trade Unions fostered such ideas as mentoring, apprenticeships, which although wasn't a "fast-track" to employment for the trainees; it ensured properly trained workers and quality work
When I began working in the UAW just 12 years ago, there was a lot of waste; both in the offices and on the "Floor", now I can say with all good conscience, it's NOT the same Union!, or management fo that matter.

Look how much GM has changed, improved, over the last 12 years...Do you think that an evolving UAW couldn't be a part of that improvement???
There is always some middle ground that both labor and management can get a satisfactory agreement, especially since negociators on both sides are much better at defining their needs.

 

I’ll give you this; you’ve learned the UAW talking points well.

Unions are an impediment to management; they seek one thing and that is their own continued existence. Any benefit to the rank and file is purely a by-product of their desire to maintain power.

They have certainly served a purpose but that purpose has long ago passed and as long as the domestics have to deal with the UAW, they will always be at a disadvantage to the transplant manufacturers.

 

Ya think??? sad isnt it. Were sell outs..

 

Central Glass was associated with Ford because they copied (and wanted) Ford's glass process for application of the poly-urethan internal layer front wind-screen manufacture. It is true, the Japanese only want their own suppliers. They don't trust American based companies. I've seen it alot with all of the jobs I have had.

Sorry you don't agree with me, and, I don't begin to approach your standards. I state the truth. Go ahead and read all you want. Believe everything you read. I'm done with this post and all of your others. You will not see me again. CamaroZ28 is a tech web-site.

I usually have alot of Engineering information to share in those posts, and, attempt to help people with modification of their cars. It's sad that all you can do is bash the domestics on a regular basis and cannot contribute to any of the Engineering science applications on this web site.

 

Well I guess if you want to take your marbles and go home you can but just because someone disagrees with you seems like a pretty flimsily reason to do so.

When you start making statements like “all” or “most”, as you did in your initial post, you are making a very all encompassing assertion and I don’t feel it unusual or unreasonable or out of line to ask for some evidence to back up the claim. Bringing over one or two or even a few or a few dozen suppliers is hardly “all”…and claiming that all or most of the employees of those suppliers, how ever many there are, are all or mostly Japanese is equally broad and deserving of some evidence to back it up.

I’m not discounting your personal experience but your personal experience is a pretty limited basis on which to base such broad statements. Frankly, what seems likely here is that you simply hate Japanese imports (or the Japanese in general) and engaged in a bit of exaggeration to reinforce your point of view.

As far as "bashing the domestics" go; pointing out real issues or bad decisions or disagreeing with you or other people is not “bashing the domestics”…if you can’t see or refuse to see the problems that have and/or do exist in Detroit then I would suggest that it is you that needs to reconsider his position.

By the way, there is more to life, and more to this website, than "engineering sicience applications"...I don't usually contribute in those areas because my backgorund is finance, accounting, and IT plus 30 plus years in the business world (less 8 for Navy service) and a fair amount of those years in the auto industry...I doubt that my "engineering" knowledge, such as it is, is either needed or desired.

While I have made posts in quit a few of the forum catagories over the years I've been a member here, I cetainly haven't and likely never will post in all of them and I suspect that's probably true of most people who come to this website; we all come here for different reasons and have different interests...I tend to think that's a good thing.