Japanese Begin to Lose Ground to the Americans

The decade-long battle between the American and Japanese car producers has entered a new stage a few years ago, when two of the largest producers in the world, GM and Chrysler, had to file for bankruptcy. Now, the tides have turned, with actual waves nearly demolishing the Japanese automotive industry. Where are we now?

According to a new annual study published by buyer-supplier relations specialist Planning Perspectives (PPI), slowly but surely the Americans are reclaiming the lost ground. Despite the fact that Toyota managed, against all adversity, to come back to the number one position in the top of the world's manufacturers, the overall picture points to an American victory.

PPI says that the American Big Three are showing great improvements in several areas of their business, but mostly in OEM Communication, OEM Help, Supplier Profit Opportunity and Relationship. They still lack, the study found, OEM Trust, a field where the Japanese are still masters.

On the other hand, the Japanese are losing ground when it comes to OEM Rewarding High Performing Suppliers with New/Additional Business, OEM Covers Sunk Costs When Programs are Cancelled or Delayed and Concern for Supplier's Profit Margin.

The study conducted by PPI, which can be read in full at the following link, follows the performance of six major purchasing groups broken down into 14 commodity areas. The results of the study are used to calculate the Working Relations Index (WRI) based on 17 working relations variables. For the current year, 451 suppliers took part, or 63 percent of the six automakers' annual buy (three from Japan and three from the US).

"In the last several years the US automakers, realizing that an adversarial approach to working with suppliers won't work, have been working hard to work more collaboratively with their suppliers," said John W. Henke, the study's author.