Big 3 Also Believed Losing Race on Machine Upkeep

TOKYO —  Not only do Japanese auto makers have better relations with their workers than Detroit’s Big Three, but they also treat their machines with more respect, some Japanese executives argue.

Next to every assembly plant, the Japanese have set up engineering facilities, staffed both with skilled technicians and trained engineers, to build and maintain their complex manufacturing equipment.

Detroit’s Big Three are only gradually shifting to that system.

Shoichiro Irimajiri, Honda’s senior managing director in charge of worldwide manufacturing--who previously ran Honda’s U.S. assembly plant in Ohio--believes that the Big Three’s failure in the past to match the Japanese commitment to maintaining machinery at peak performance levels has slowed Detroit’s drive to catch up in quality.

For example, Irimajiri notes that the on-site engineering operations in Japan constantly seek to improve the quality of the stamping presses and their molding dies, which shape fenders, doors and other sheet-metal parts for car bodies.

That drive for better quality--along with constant maintenance--allows the Japanese to avoid the small ripples and creases that often mar the exteriors of American cars.

Workers at Big Three plants do regularly maintain and repair stamping presses. But Irimajiri argues that those workers are primarily concerned with keeping the machinery--and thus the assembly line--running, rather than with looking for ways to improve the quality of the equipment.

“When you eliminate (the on-site engineering), then it will result in defaults in the metal,” Irimajiri said. “So when you compare the quality of car bodies, you can easily recognize the differences between our cars and those of the Big Three. It is easily noticeable by a car buyer.”