The Success of Flexible, Low-cost, Quality Competitors

The authors made extensive visits to factories in Europe to find support for their view that successful European manufacturers have evolved over recent decades from low-cost quality producers into flexible, low-cost quality producers. Flexibility allows them to introduce technological change very rapidly — this is the key to success.

Piet Bolwijn and Ted Kumpe visited DAF Trucks, Fiat, GEC, Olivetti, Philips and Thomson and, whilst not finding any two factories alike, discovered their strategies bore out the authors' view — they strove for excellence by adding flexibility to efficiency and quality.