From Lean Production to Mass Customisation: Recent Developments in the Australian Automotive Industry

Richard Cooney and Graham Sewell

Chapter 5 in Flexibility at Work, 2008, pp 127-149 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Given its relatively marginal status as a manufacturing economy it may come as a surprise to learn that Australia has a well established and highly internationalised automotive manufacturing industry dominated by leading US and Japanese corporations. Automotive manufacturing began early in Australia with the Ford Motor Company commencing full local manufacturing in 1928, to be followed by General Motors-Holden in 1949, Mitsubishi in 1977 and Toyota in 1979. The more recently arrived Japanese manufacturers have been known to refer to the Australian vehicle industry as a ‘bonsai’ industry; small but well-developed in all its detail. This bonsai industry is hardly thriving, with Australia accounting for less than 0.5 per cent of annual global vehicle production, but is, nevertheless, striving to cope with the rigours of globalisation.

Keywords: Automotive Industry; Industrial Relation; Mass Customisation; Employee Involvement; Normative Integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230581937_6

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