VAUXHALL, in 1963, used to offer 512 different types of carpet to its Victor model. Blimey.
512! Imagine the logistics, the waste, the need for systems management, the storage demands, sheer difficulty of co-coordinating and perfecting this in the days way before computers and JIT. To a production manager today, it plain doesn’t bear thinking about.
But, know what? Direct comparisons can be drawn with today, believe it or not. Yes, I am using carpet as an example of modern lean car production.
Modern cars, you see, usually have but one basic type of carpet. None of that multi-colour, multi-grade stuff nowadays: you may have gotten posh plush shag in a 1979 Ford Fiesta Ghia, but in today’s Titanium Individual, it’s exactly the same bum-fluff stuff (© Russell Bulgin) that’s in the boggo Studio.
This is why price-list spotters now note something very significant on the official car manufacturers list: carpet mats. Yes, really. Car makers have made them a factory-fit option, or a factory-fit upgrade on the posher variants.
Why? To simplify production, cut costs, ease the supplier chain, yet still ensure there’s sufficient margin to trade up on posher trims. Genius.
Particularly as this is a fitment that’s entirely flexible. You could even do it at dealer level, as part of the PDI, rather than needing a specific process on the production line. Brings a dose more uniformity to the production process, that probably saves £millions.
Clues like this abound in price lists. Cars are more tech-packed than ever, yet the fact they are still priced relative to models in the past is only partly through the cost of tech coming down.
Car makers have worked out how to make cars more cheaply, without you noticing. Bet you 512-to-1 that this carpety thought had never crossed your mind…
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