Sublime

under 2,000 pounds and under $2,000”—were

Since 1893, when the Duryea brothers’ gasoline buggy first clattered over the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts, there have been more than twelve hundred automobile companies and some two thousand different makes of cars. Today there are only six passenger-car makers. Why did the Ford company survive when twelve hundred others went out of busin

Because the concern hadn’t very strong financial backing, Ford Motor Company agreed to underwrite the new tools and dies necessary for the work. This was common practice with us when suppliers ran into financial trouble when expanding their facilities enough to meet our needs.

Picture it. One Ford employee making ten cars a year for thirty-five years while his Toyota counterpart goes from four to sixty. Toyota’s supplier network? A typical GM car factory used eight hundred suppliers. Toyota? Just 125 … with half the in-house work. This dispels the Western myth of needing more to do more: Toyota was doing more with less.