I’ve followed the auto industry for 25 years and have been fortunate enough to test drive cars and visit factories on all six inhabited continents. Through the maze of different languages and cultures, the process of making a car is actually very similar around the world. Simply put, automakers attempt to make as many cars as possible, and the highest correlation with margins is found in a basic metric: linespeed. Any time the line stops, profits are being wasted, but the heart of any modern auto production process, most notably the Toyota Production System, is a series of preemptive line stops when potential assembly problems are noted.
