The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry


Book Description

Analyzes the reasons for the failures of the American auto industry to compete with foreign imports and to make use of modern technology and styling.




Automotive Fuel Economy


Book Description

This volume presents realistic estimates for the level of fuel economy that is achievable in the next decade for cars and light trucks made in the United States and Canada. A source of objective and comprehensive information on the topic, this book takes into account real-world factors such as the financial conditions in the automotive industry, costs and benefits to consumers, and marketability of high-efficiency vehicles. The committee is composed of experts from the fields of science, technology, finance, and regulation and offers practical evaluations of technological improvements that could contribute to increased fuel efficiency. The volume also examines potential barriers to improvement, such as high production costs, regulations on safety and emissions, and consumer preferences. This practical book is of considerable interest to car and light truck manufacturers, policymakers, federal and state agencies, and the public.




Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics


Book Description

Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics is a corporate-focused analysis that brings clarity and practicality to the complex issues of environmental metrics in industry. The book examines the metrics implications to businesses as their responsibilities expand beyond the factory gateâ€"upstream to suppliers and downstream to products and services. It examines implications that arise from greater demand for comparability of metrics among businesses by the investment community and environmental interest groups. The controversy over what sustainable development means for businesses is also addressed. Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics identifies the most useful metrics based on case studies from four industriesâ€"automotive, chemical, electronics, and pulp and paperâ€"and includes specific corporate examples. It contains goals and recommendations for public and private sector players interested in encouraging the broader use of metrics to improve industrial environmental performance and those interested in addressing the tough issues of prioritization, weighting of metrics for meaningful comparability, and the longer term metrics needs presented by sustainable development.




The Automotive Body Manufacturing Systems and Processes


Book Description

A comprehensive and dedicated guide to automotive production lines, The Automotive Body Manufacturing Systems and Processes addresses automotive body processes from the stamping operations through the final assembly activities. To begin, it discusses current metal forming practices, including stamping engineering, die development, and dimensional validation, and new innovations in metal forming, such as folding based forming, super-plastic, and hydro forming technologies. The first section also explains details of automotive spot welding (welding lobes), arc welding, and adhesive bonding, in addition to flexible fixturing systems and welding robotic cells. Guiding readers through each stage in the process of automotive painting, including the calculations needed to compute the number of applicators and paint consumption based on vehicle dimensions and demand, along with the final assembly and automotive mechanical fastening strategies, the book's systematic coverage is unique. The second module of the book focuses on the layout strategies of the automotive production line. A discussion of automotive aggregate planning and master production scheduling ensures that the reader is familiar with operational aspects. The book also reviews the energy emissions and expenditures of automotive production processes and proposes new technical solutions to reduce environmental impact. Provides extensive technical coverage of automotive production processes, discussing flexible stamping, welding and painting lines Gives complete information on automotive production costing as well as the supplier selection process Covers systems from the operational perspective, describing the aggregate and master production planning Details technical aspects of flexible automotive manufacturing lines Methodically discusses the layout and location strategies of automotive manufacturing systems to encompass the structural elements Features topic-related questions with answers on a companion website




Who Really Made Your Car?


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive look at an industry that plays a growing role in motor vehicle production in the United States.




Comeback


Book Description

In Comeback, Pulitzer Prize-winners Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White take us to the boardrooms, the executive offices, and the shop floors of the auto business to reconstruct, in riveting detail, how America's premier industry stumbled, fell, and picked itself up again. The story begins in 1982, when Honda started building cars in Marysville, Ohio, and the entire U.S. car industry seemed to be on the brink of extinction. It ends just over a decade later, with a remarkable turn of the tables, as Japan's car industry falters and America's Big Three emerge as formidable global competitors. Comeback is a story propelled by larger-than-life characters -- Lee Iacocca, Henry Ford II, Don Petersen, Roger Smith, among many others -- and their greed, pride, and sheer refusal to face facts. But it is also a story full of dedicated, unlikely heroes who struggled to make the Big Three change before it was too late.




Japan and the Global Automotive Industry


Book Description

The Japanese automotive industry enjoyed spectacular success in the 1980s. This was largely due to the so-called 'Lean Production System' - the combination of an efficient production system, an effective supplier system, and a product development system. In the 1990s the industry fell on hard times because of the Japanese asset price bubble and extreme currency appreciation. In this book, eminent industry specialist Koichi Shimokawa draws on his thirty years of research and fieldwork with Japanese and American firms, to show how the Japanese automotive industry has managed to recover from this difficult period. He shows how firms like Toyota were able to transfer Japanese systems to overseas plants and how they have changed in order to compete in increasingly globalized markets. In addition, the book also addresses the two major challenges to the current industry model: the rise of China and the environmental and energy supply situation.




Operations Management in Automotive Industries


Book Description

This book has proved its worth over the years as a text for courses in Production Management at the Faculty of Automotive Engineering in Turin, Italy, but deserves a wider audience as it presents a compendium of basics on Industrial Management, since it covers all major topics required. It treats all subjects from product development and “make or buy”-decision strategies to the manufacturing systems setting and management through analysis of the main resources needed in production and finally exploring the supply chain management and the procurement techniques. The very last chapter recapitulates the previous ones by analysing key management indicators to pursue the value creation that is the real purpose of every industrial enterprise. As an appendix, a specific chapter is dedicated to the basics of production management where all main relevant definitions, techniques and criteria are treated, including some numerical examples, in order to provide an adequate foundation for understanding the other chapters. This book will be of use not only to Automotive Engineering students but a wide range of readers who wish to gain insight in the world of automotive engineering and the automotive industry in general.




U.S. Automotive Industry


Book Description

Over one million Americans are employed in manufacturing motor vehicles, equipment and parts. But the industry has changed dramatically since the U.S. "Big Three" motor vehicle corporations (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) produced the overwhelming majority of cars and light trucks sold in the United States, and directly employed many people themselves. By 2003, most passenger cars sold in the U.S. market were either imported or manufactured by foreign-based producers at new North American plants (so-called "transplant" facilities). The Big Three now dominate only in light trucks, and are also now being challenged there by the foreign brands. The Big Three have shed about 600,000 U.S. jobs since 1980, while about one-quarter of Americans employed in automotive manufacturing (nearly 300,000) work for the foreign-owned companies. It is clear that the U.S. automotive industry has undergone many drastic changes that have had a net adverse effect on American interests. This book examines the causes of these changes. Congressional acts, increasingly stringent emission laws, the effects of NAFTA, labour unions and globalisation are all within the scope of this book.




The Future of the Automobile


Book Description

Cited by Business Week as one of 1984's ten best books on business and economics, The Future of the Automobile is the most comprehensive assessment ever conducted of the world's largest industry.