International Motor Vehicle Program

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The International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) is widely recognized as the oldest and largest international research consortium aiming to understand the challenges facing the global automotive industry. It started in 1979, funded by the German Marshall Fund , as a five-year research project entitled The Future of the Automobile . It was located at the newly established "Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge , which was headed by Daniel Roos .

In 1985, Roos managed to organize funding for a very extensive follow-up project, which has now started with the title IMVP. This project, too, was managed by MIT, but was organized internationally through various faculties. With this study, the IMVP began to institutionalize. Further work followed, and since 2010 the IMVP has been a largely virtualized institution that primarily deals with management issues in the automotive industry. The IMVP has set standards for research in industry with the methods developed in the projects.

The MIT study

The original IMVP study is often cited simply as "The MIT Study" in Germany. It stretched over five years, from 1985 to 1991. During this time, a total of 54 experts in 15 countries examined the manufacturing processes in the automotive industry under the direction of James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones .

Many of the researchers were recruited for the study directly from senior positions in the automotive industry. The automotive industry encouraged its employees to take this step, helped give researchers access to factories, and sponsored the program with more than five million US dollars.

All of the world's major automobile groups at the time were included, with a distinction being made between volume providers such as Volkswagen , Fiat , Volvo , Renault , General Motors , Ford , Honda and Toyota, and specialists such as BMW and Porsche . In total, they visited 90 assembly plants and examined hundreds of suppliers .

In order to be able to compare, the scientists defined a complete set of work steps that are required for the production of a vehicle and compared the processes on this level. In this research , product development and design, coordination of supply chain , order fulfillment in the works, the sale and service included.

This study became known far beyond the scientific community and interested sponsors. The final report by Womack, Jones and Roos, prepared for the public, was translated into eleven languages ​​and sold more than 600,000 times. As a specialist book, it achieved the dimensions of best- selling novels and made the term “ Lean Production ” known worldwide as part of the study .

The International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) has had a major impact on the global automotive industry and the economy that is part of it.

The IMVP as an institution

The "International Motor Vehicle Program" (imvp) has been establishing itself as a brand since 2000. The term is no longer used for the original, individual but very extensive research program, but to designate a consortium of researchers who also regularly work together in an institutional form.

The homepage, "imvp", provides this virtual organization with an institutional framework. The work of the project started in 1980 is presented there, divided into four phases:

  • Phase one (1980–1984) served to identify trends in the global automotive industry and conducted competitive analyzes.
  • Phase Two (1984–1990) examined the competition and produced the fundamental comparative productivity studies summarized in The Machine that Changed the World by Womack, Jones, and Roos.
  • Phase three (1990–1999) dealt with the shifts in power within the global supply chain , the development of industrial production concepts, and the challenges of a sustainable balance between social, ecological and economic demands on the automotive industry. The main results were published by Charles H. Fine in Clockspeed .
  • Phase four (2000–…): In September 2000, the imvp launched a program entitled “ Navigating Auto's Next Economy (NextAuto)”. The main research areas are management concepts for the extended enterprise ( benchmarking the value chain , modularization and outsourcing , product development strategies, cross-border competence development), e-automotive (internet-based supply chains and logistics centers ), internet-based mass customization , visions of a sustainable future (green drive technologies, new materials, recycling and environmental management , mobility solutions).

The proven benchmarking programs for comparing productivity will be continued.

literature

  • Alan A. Altshuler: Future of the Automobile: The Report of MIT's International Automobile Program. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1984, ISBN 0-262-01081-X .
  • James Womack, Daniel Jones, Daniel Roos: The Second Revolution in the Auto Industry: Consequences of the Worldwide Study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Campus, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-593-34548-X .
  • Charles H. Fine: Clockspeed: how companies can react quickly to market changes. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-455-11264-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alan A. Altshuler: The future of the automobile: the report of MIT's international automobile program. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1984, ISBN 0-262-01081-X .
  2. ^ Matthias Holweg: The genealogy of lean production. In: Journal of Operations Management. 25, 2, 2007, pp. 420-437. doi: 10.1016 / j.jom.2006.04.001
  3. ↑ a b James Womack, Daniel Jones, Daniel Roos: The Machine that changed the World: The Story of Lean Production. HarperCollins, New York 1990, ISBN 0-06-097417-6 , p. 2.
  4. ↑ rieti.go.jp
  5. ^ Hans-Jürgen Warnecke, Manfred Hüser: Lean Production: A Critical Appreciation. In: applied ergonomics. 131, 1992, pp. 1–26, here: p. 2.
  6. ↑ a b Harald Willenbrock: Womack's wisdom. ( Memento from October 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: brand eins Wissen. on-line.
  7. ↑ ivmphistory ( Memento from August 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  8. ↑ Charles Fine, Birgit Lamerz-Beckschäfer (trans.): Clock Speed: how companies can respond quickly to market changes. Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-455-11264-1 .
    English original: Charles H. Fine: Clockspeed: winning industry control in the age of temporary advantage. Basic Books, New York, NY 1998, ISBN 0-7382-0153-7 .
  9. ↑ MIT Reports to the President 2000-2001