ABSTRACT
The automotive industry presents a popular image of itself as leading the way in demonstrating the efficiency gains associated with the implementation of just-intime ‘customer-pull’ production techniques. Other industries look towards the automotive industry in search of benchmarks against which they, too, can achieve the rewards of low cost, high quality and profitable operations. However, this picture is far from the truth. As management consultants KPMG report in Europe on the Move (1998), it is estimated that the value of unsold finished vehicle stocks within Europe are in the region of around £18 billion, with each car being stored for an average of 50 days before being sold. Furthermore, whilst a number of manufacturers aspire towards the goal of reducing customer order lead-times it is still closer to the truth to talk of industry build-to-customer order lead-times being on average 40 days or more according to research undertaken by the International Car Distribution Programme (Kiff, 1997).
