A report of worldwide significance, based on a co-operative venture between MIT and the world's largest car makers from three continents. This book describes the volatile trends that will shape the motor industry of the future, and profoundly affect both business practice of manufacturing enterprises around the globe and the balance of power between East and West. The authors show in detail how Japan's innovative "lean production" methods work, why the Japanese are beating Western manufacturing, and how, through international co-operation, some of this erosion can be impaired in the future. Despite conventional doom-and-gloom wisdom, the book paints a portrait of an industry regenerating itself in a global market.