Paradigmatic Shifts in Automobile Manufacturing
ABSTRACTOne of the greatest problems facing the U.S. auto industry is the erosion of its manufacturing base. Another is the increasing challenge from Japan, which keeps building on its solid postwar accomplishments mapped out by such pioneers as Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo. Their enduring legacy includes a reliance on the firm's human resources for maintaining productivity and quality control. The Japanese paradigm thus has a built-in mechanism for self-improvement and competitiveness enhancement.The continued strife in Detroit suggests that the older American paradigm must be restructured; its top-down way of conducting business must allow labor to become a genuine partner with management instead of an adversary. The Japanese immigrant plants in the United States clearly show the way to do this. While such restructuring is frequently time-consuming, the period available for reform dwindles as the Asians keep strengthening their U.S. operations.
Japanese automobile manufacturing in an American setting
Abstract The growing force of Japanese manufacturing in the automobile industry is analyzed in its postwar formative stages, its export surges during the oil shortages of the last decade, and the current start-up of assembly plants in the United States. The immigrant plants demonstrate a new successful operating paradigm which revolves around a cooperative compact with labor and continuous innovation in cost and quality control work routines. The U.S. factory floor is being transformed under the Japanese paradigm as work responsibility is invested in front-line personnel recruited from the surrounding American locale.
A New Estimate of the Student Brain Drain from Asia
The "brain drain" phenomenon has been widely discussed among concerned public and private individuals here and abroad. But in spite of the great concern and heated discussion that have surrounded the situation, no accurate, dependable figures either from officialor private sources have yet become available to show the magnitude of the student brain drain from Asia to the United States. In reviewing the estimates of scholars and experts, one can conclude that the brain drain among Asian students is clearly higher than among foreign students in general. What one cannot tell from these estimates is how much higher, for they conflict too greatly to give a comprehensible picture. The adjustment/admission ratios that can be computed from Immigration and Naturalization Service statistics have varied so widely from year to year that it is difficult to define any trend. I Estimates based on the per cent of actual returns over a decade or more for China and Korea are very large, but the accuracy of the statistics is doubtful, as is the continued or permanent settlement of the students abroad.' Likewise, the incidence of first postdoctoral employment in the United States is rather high, but again the permanence of the migration is questionable.' Because of the general lack of firm knowledge and factual data concerning this and many other aspects of the Asian student brain drain, an extensive survey was made among all students from 6 Asian nationality groups on the campuses of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Minnesota at