ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three corporations— Ford Motor Company, Nissan Corporation, and McDonald’s Corporation—that have only a partial approach to lean production. Many firms are partial adopters of lean production, and to a large degree most firms have strongly embraced Just-in-time inventory. The implementation of lean production some industries has not been as extensive as one might believe. The Ford Production System is oriented to “increase its global flexible manufacturing to produce on average four different models at each plant around the world to allow for greater adaptability based on varying customer demand”. Nissan has been making cars under the Datsun brand from 1914 based on the first letters of the last names of their investors: Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Ayama and Meitaro Takeuchi plus the “sun” on the Japanese flag. McDonaldization was developed by George Ritzer in 1993, and it models itself on the rationalization and standardization of the McDonald’s restaurant corporation.
