You rarely see litter, cigarette buts or dog mess in the streets of Japan. Having lived in both the UK and Japan I can say that Japan is by far the cleanest country of the two. Indeed, when smokers stand outside offices here in Tokyo, they do with their own portable mini-ashtrays. What's that got to do with cars, you may ask? Well, who would you rather have designing your car ABS system? I'd rather have the engineer who is obsessive about cleanliness and doesn't tolerate faults.
By contrast, I think people in the UK are far more tolerant of many things - both for the better and for the worse. In transport terms, it's for the worse. Take a look at the train system, delays are an everyday occurrence around London. In Tokyo they are the exception. Sure, the last train from Tokyo was delayed the other night because somebody jumped on the line, but little you can do about that. Leaves, strikes and cold weather rarely rattle the system here. The UK economy simply isn't geared towards mass market manufacturing like Japan. The UK's strengths are in the creative, service and bespoke sectors. Japan however can still attract the best talent to work for top auto brands.
The UK economy simply isn't geared towards mass market manufacturing like Japan. The UK's strengths are in the creative, service and bespoke sectors. Japan however can still attract the best talent to work for top auto brands.
Differences in management philosophy
Japanese talk about "Kaizen" which literally means constant improvement. While not a Japanese concept by origin (attributed to American W.Deming) it was the Japanese post-war auto manufacturers who excelled at this idea. Because Nissan, Datsun, Honda, Toyota etc were challenger brands in the 60s and 70s, they had to compete with foreign auto brands on the basis of reliability.
Eventually, Kaizen could identify the source of unreliability rather than simply fix the symptoms. Piyush Michael's post talks about using less parts, and how cutting corners in manufacturing may actually cause greater cost long term. Sometimes UK managers are too focused on cutting costs early on to satisfy short term shareholder demands.
Differences in competition
The Japanese auto market is far more competitive than the UK one, and that's without foreign brands included. Even between the main manufacturers Toyota, Honda and Nissan, there are 100s of different models, each aimed at a specific demographic. Take a look at this page here. ホンダ(honda)の中古車 | 中古車なら【カーセンサーnet】
Sure it's in Japanese but you can see from just the pictures, how many models Honda has, and Honda's not even the biggest manufacturer. As the mainstay of competition is the middle market, manufacturers have focused on reliability historically and that has now become a minimum for all major brands.