[Moneyguy1]

Economies of scale almost killed Ford. The Model T changeover to match GM's newer, more modern designs cost Ford nearly 250 million since the Ford plant was monolithically designed around the Tin Lizzie. After WWII. there was not much left to Japanese production capacity. Starting from a "clean sheet, their approach was different than the US methods. People were trained to do more rather than fewer tasks. Any worker had the right to push a button and shut down the line if a problem occurred. This reduced the need for separate inspection departments since every worker was expected to also be a quality control person. Once a line was working, management would challenge the workers by removing 10% of the line workforce and see if the production level could be re-established, how long it took and whether quality levels remained the same. Lean production. The ability to change major die sets in hours, not days. Model changeover in days, not months or weeks.

Different philosophy, built on the American model of the assemble line, but modified to include the human factor rather than eliminating it, making the worker an intergal part of the whole.