Originally Posted by
BikeWNC
I haven't read that book but does it mention how Toyota squeezes its suppliers to lower costs? The culture in Japan is different than in the U.S. Often these suppliers are spread so thin that they can barely survive but they go along with the demands of the large company to save face and do the honorable thing instead of say no I can't do that. Maybe that will change but it's been that way for a very long time.
OK, maybe I've had too much Koolaid but there is a case study on one of the GM spinoffs from the 1990s. I can't remember their name of the top of my head, but it could have been Delco. Anyway they were supplying parts to GM (of course) but they also start supplying parts to Toyota because Toyota uses "local" suppliers as much as possible at their "in-country" factories. Anyway, GM did their typical US-style squeeze while Toyota did their thing to reduce cost. The punchline is that a few years later, the facilities supplying GM were almost out of business while the facilities supplying Toyota were very healthy.
I can't remember the Japanese term but the "family" of suppliers to Toyota are supposed to be very strong.
I'll have to do more research to see if I'm being misled.