Hon& of America has developed a comprehensive approach to teaching the principles of leanproduction to its suppliers. The centerpiece of these efforts is a program called BP (for ?Best process?,?Best Performance ?, ?Bs Practice?), in which a crossfunctional team of persomel born Honda and thesupplier work intensively for week or even months on narrowly-targeted improvement projects in thesupplier?s plant. BP has been quite successfid in enhancing supplier performance; suppliers participatingin the program in 1994 avmge~ productiviw gains of 50?/0 on lines reengineered by BP. However,Honda found there was high variation in the extent to which suppliers were able to transfer the lessonstaught beyond the line or plant where the BP intervention occurred. We explore the reasons for thisvariatio~ touching on how the BP process interacts with the broader relationship between customer andsupplier, organizational learning, technology transfer, and the transplantation of Japanese managementpractices to the U.S. The case studies we present of three of Honda?s U.S. suppliers illustrate thedynamics of the learning process and the complex relationship that emerged between ?teacher? and?student?. We found that achieving self sufficiency with the lean production techniques taught by BP ismore likely when the supplier has a moderate degree of identification with and dependency on thecustomer. If these are too hi~ the supplier will be tempted to continue to rely on the customer forassistance; if they are too low, the learning relationship may break down. It appears that Honda hasachieved the most supplier self reliance with larger U.S.-owned companies, who have an identity asstrong, competent actors, and thus try to reduce dependence on Honda by mastering the new knowledgequickly. Yet these larger suppliers may be less responsive to Honda?s needs that small-to-mediumsuppliers whose capabilities can be boosted through Honda?s supplier development activities.
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