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What's special in the Japanese cars?
What makes Japanese cars so special? If we want to understand this phenomenon, we need to look at the history of the country.
Japan is one of the most economically and technologically advanced countries in the world. In fact, the Japanese economy was doing so well back in 80s that many experts were sure that it would outperform the economy of the USA by the beginning of the 90s, which, of course, never happened due to the crisis.
If we look at the history of Japan after the WWII, we will understand that Japanese automobile makers weren’t always doing that well, as well as other Japanese manufacturers. The fist pursuits to export Japanese cars abroad in the 1950s were utter failures, and that was not just about cars. The words “Made in Japan” were a bad joke back in the 50s and 60s. As the history has it, it was so bad that some companies set up their plants in a Japanese village called Usa, so they could say that their produce was “Made in USA”!:)
As we can see, the beginning of the story wasn’t positive. What helped Japan on its way to prosperity? The de facto dictator of Japan back that time, General MacArthur, did quite a few good things for the country, and one of those good things was inviting the American quality guru W. Edwards Deming. The ideas of Mr. Deming didn’t enjoy much popularity in America of that time, but Japanese appreciated them greatly, especially professor Genichi Taguchi, Japan's homegrown quality management expert, who credited much of the American's ideas for his so-called Taguchi method.
Taguchi and others would proceed on to influence a generation of Japanese engineers who would become the mainstay of the nation's growing manufacturing prowess. Essentially, Deming’s idea, subsequently developed by Taguchi and others, was to record the number of product defects, analyze why they happened, institute changes, then record how much the quality has improved, and to keep refining the operation until it is performed right.
The whole thing had evolved into conception called Total Quality Management. It involves the workers/ engineers constantly looking for safer, quicker, more effective ways of making the product and management actually implementing their ideas. A beautiful part of that idea is, the management has to work in the factory for at least six months, and then, sometimes, as car dealers selling the products of their companies, so they have the full knowledge of the car business.
According to one American, who was working for a big Japanese car manufacturer, their newly hired managers had to work on the assembly line for a few months, and then it was two of them in a room full of the car parts with the assignment to assemble the car (!), which they eventually did. That was the test. Such a practice erases the gap between workers and management and allows them to cooperate very effectively.
According to other experts, the secret of Japanese cars is the Japanese automakers hold tighter tolerances than, let’s say, US automakers do. This makes a big difference in the longevity of a component, affecting the overall quality of a Japanese car. Ford found this out when they had two production lines building the same transmission. One line was in the US, the other was in Japan. Ford was surprised that the Japanese built transmissions were lasting longer than the American built ones, so they took one of the Japanese built transmissions and dismantled it to find out what was going on with it. That's when they found out that the only difference between the two (they had suspected that the Japanese had made some modifications to it) was the tolerances.
Japanese auto makers operated under the 'Made in Japan' stigma of the post-war years. Entering the American market was their natural move, and it wasn’t easy. They had to ensure quality fit, finish, and operation to counter this stigma. From the other hand, American auto makers seem to have been resting on their laurels, and the push to make more cars for less money harmed quality. It looked like American auto makers thought Americans liked useless trim and gadgets, while Japanese cars were more 'functional'.
Another aspect is, the innovative design, super performance and the impressive market approach all stand as proof to Japan’s supremacy at an economic level. Whoever has owned a Toyota or a Honda knows that quality is under no circumstance a product of marketing, and this is why most of the JDM automakers successfully compete with European or American auto tycoons. By any measure (defects per vehicle), failure rate per 1000 miles, initial quality, Japanese made cars are good.
Makes like LEXUS have very few initial problems, and the vehicle systems (like radio/ audio / TV, alternator, water pumps, etc.), and show a very low failure rate, over the life of the vehicle. Therefore, Japanese manufacturers clearly enjoy a premium quality over even highly rated European manufacturers like Mercedes - Benz.
Thus, by importing a car from Japan, you get a quality- functionality- and client-oriented vehicle. We have made it for our customers for over 3000 times, and have never had to feel bad for a bad choice.
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