01-25-2006, 03:30 PM
There was a really good book on the Jap automakers and how they do things in comparison to the US automakers - I'll have to dig it up. The US automatkers are too wrapped up with the bottom line and they squeeze the profits out of their suppliers with cutthroat competition, where as the Jap automakers are more willing to develop the product and foster relationships with their suppliers and work with them to become more efficient and will usually have multiple suppliers for the same part. Honda's philosophy on this is "BP" (best product, best productivity, best something else).