Being in the process of reading The Machine That Changed the World (a book about the development of lean production in Japan in response to the shortcomings of

Being in the process of reading The Machine That Changed the World (a book about the development of lean production in Japan in response to the shortcomings of mass production in the United States), I can't help but see the parallel between Toyota's ability to quickly adapt to the changing demands of different export markets with an industrial process that creates variations on a theme in direct response to the demands of the customer. Contrast this with Ford's approach of throwing all resources into the same identical product, depending on the sheer scale of the production to absorb the inevitable defects in quality and supply-chain timing.