Global business context, car industry

Résumé du document

The car industry has witnessed major changes over the years, thanks to the growing number of external forces that changed the decades-old practices of manufacturing. This paper analyses the important forces in the last two decades that have had a major impact on the car manufacturing practices. The paper provides statistics on the production figures of cars in various countries and analyses the external forces such as Euro Emission Standards, outsourcing, introduction of alternate fuels and the advent of computers in the automobile industry. Among the various external factors, environmental issues such as air pollution, global warming and ozone layer depletion have become one of the major forces that have influenced the design and manufacturing of automobiles. Governments across the world have created regulations such as the Euro Standards and US Emission Standards that specify the maximum amount of gases such as nitrous oxide that is allowed in the exhaust gases of automobiles.

Extraits

[...] Some of the forces are the outsourcing of components and there is a gradual shift in outsourcing components to the Asian countries. With increasing concerns for environment and pollution, automobile manufacturers need to comply with the Euro standards of emission. Technology advances that influenced the industry include the introduction of agile manufacturing systems, computers and robots and the use of cemented carbide cutting tools. There is an increasing trend in using alternative fuels such a bio diesel; methane, compressed natural gas and car manufacturers have to bear the expenses of making the automobiles run on these fuels. [...]

[...] Studies conducted by India Business show that auto component exports made to US in 2004-05 were about $ 1.4 billion and this trend is rising. Asian countries such as India have their own home-grown automobile industry and these have what are claimed to be ‘world class manufacturing facilities'. India has a tremendous pool of skilled labour and with the advent of sophisticated and mass production machines, good quality assurance and a skilled ancillary industry, the auto component industry has grown by (Automobile Sector, 2006). [...]

[...] and other hydrocarbons. The Euro Standards were launched in 1988 with Euro 0 and other standard in the series such as Euro Euro 3 and son on have been issued and the latest standard is Euro V. Please refer Table 4. Euro Emission Standards (Regulatory Framework, 2007). The permitted value of pollutants has witnessed tighter controls and this means that the automobile manufacturing companies need to spend much more in research and developments. These technology factors have exerted a massive influence in the automobile industry. [...]

[...] E.g., only 22 months was required to bring Toyota's Tundra pickup truck from styling freeze to start of production. On an average, Toyota takes 24 months and in some cases, it has taken just 10 months to design and put a product on the road. GE typically took between 30 to 40 months to reach a market with a new product (Teresko John, 2007). Introduction of Cemented Carbide tools and Computer Numerical Control machines drove the machining time to very low levels and increased productivity and accuracy. [...]

[...] Manufacturing figures of major automobile manufacturers (Yoshida Yushi, 2005) References Automobile Sector Auto Components Industry, Retrieved 17 March 2007 from http://www.indiainbusiness.nic.in/india-profile/automobile.htm Basnet Chuda, Corner Jim, Wisner Joel, Tan Keah-Choon Benchmarking supply chain management practice in New Zealand, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, vol 9. no pp: 57-64 Employees Number of Employees, Retrieved 17 March 2007 from http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/statistics/manufacturing/Employees EMO, October 2006. Biodiesel 2020: Global Market Survey, Case Studies and Forecasts. Retrieved 1 February 2007. Fuelling A Revolution Retrieved 1 February 2007. Joshi Rajashree, July 2006. [...]