Automotive Production Systems and Standardisation

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-VIII

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2. Introduction

   Pages 1-24

3. The evolution of standardisation

   Pages 25-69

4. The history of production systems in the automotive industry

   Pages 71-125

5. The case of the Mercedes Benz Production System

   Pages 127-172

6. The results of implementing the Mercedes-Benz Production System

   Pages 173-202

7. Conclusion

   Pages 203-216

8. Back Matter

   Pages 217-238

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In January 2000, Mercedes-Benz started to implement the Mercedes-Benz Prod- tion System (MPS) throughout its world-wide passenger car plants. This event is exemplary of a trend within the automotive industry: the creation and introduction of company-specific standardised production systems. It gradually emerged with the introduction of the Chrysler Operating System (COS) in the mid-1990s and represents a distinct step in the process towards implementing the universal pr- ciples of lean thinking as propagated by the MIT-study. For the academic field of industrial sociology and labour policy, the emergence of this trend seems to mark a new stage in the evolution of the debate about production systems in the auto- tive industry (Jürgens 2002:2), particularly as it seems to undermine the stand of the critics of the one-best way model (Boyer and Freyssenet 1995). The introduction of company-level standardised production systems marks the starting point of the present study. At the core of it is a case study about the M- cedes Benz Production System (MPS).

• Automotive Industry
• Learning Organisation
• Production Systems
• Quality Management
• Standardisation
• organization
• production

• Faculty of International Business Administration (IB), University of Applied Sciences Heilbronn, Heibronn, Germany

  Constanze Clarke

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