Japanese firms have achieved the highest levels of manufacturing efficiency in the world automobile industry. Some observers of Japan have assumed that Japanese firms use the same manufacturing equipment and techniques as United States firms but have benefited from the unique characteristics of Japanese employees and the Japanese culture. However, if this were true, then one would expect Japanese auto plants in the United States to perform no better than factories run by United States companies. This is not the case, Japanese-run automobile plants located in the United States and staffed by local workers have demonstrated higher levels of productivity when compared with factories owned by United States companies.
Other observers link high Japanese productivity to higher levels of capital investment per worker. But a historical perspective leads to a different conclusion. When the two top Japanese automobile makers matched and then doubled United States productivity levels in the mid-sixties, capital investment per employee was comparable to that of United States firms. Furthermore, by the late seventies, the amount of fixed assets required to produce one vehicle was roughly equivalent in Japan and in the United States. Since capital investment was not higher in Japan, it had to be other factors that led to higher productivity. A more fruitful explanation may lie with Japanese production techniques. Japanese automobile producers did not simply implement conventional processes more effectively: they made critical changes in United States procedures. For instance, the mass-production philosophy of United States automakers encouraged the production of huge lots of cars in order to utilize fully expensive, component-specific equipment and to occupy fully workers who have been trained to execute one operation efficiently. Japanese automakers chose to make small-lot production feasible by introducing several departures from United States practices, including the use of flexible equipment that could be altered easily to do several different production tasks and the training of workers in multiple jobs.
Automakers could schedule the production of different components or models on single machines, thereby eliminating the need to store the buffer stocks of extra components that result when specialized equipment and workers are kept constantly active.
The author suggests that if the observers of Japan mentioned in line 3 were correct, which of the following would be the case?
音频解析
00:00/00:00
300雷豆
完善解答 
暂无雷哥网文字解析
在做题界面LINE3不是HOWEVER后面这句，是前面japanese culture那个
0
0
回复
2019-08-15 17:08:12
第三句， “However, if this were true, then one would expect Japanese auto plants in the United States to perform no better than factories run by United States companies. ” 意思是说observer们认为如果日本人在美国建厂，他们工厂的效率会跟美国人在美国建的工厂一样，这里的“no better than”是正确答案E的“be equal to”，根据同义词替换很快就能选对。 如果想要从逻辑上去理解：observer们这么认为，因为他们认为日本员工比美国员工高效，所以如果日本人在美国雇佣美国员工，那么他们的工厂会跟美国工厂效率一样。但是作者说实际上日本人找美国员工和美国人找美国员工效率一样，所以根本原因不是日本员工比美国员工高效。 但是正如我之前解释的，其实这道题不用理解那么多，根据同义替换就可以做出来。 希望以上拙见对大家有帮助。
2
0
回复
2018-09-23 03:13:10
line3指的究竟是哪句...?前后两句表达的意思不一样 E建在美国的日本工厂生产效率和美国工厂一样 D日本工厂的工人不论在哪里都有更高的生产效率
0
0
回复
2018-09-14 15:43:52
科目：
阅读RC
来源：
精选题库
2m12s
平均耗时
61.6%
平均正确率
该题由网友c2tkVi6O提供 上传GMAT题
分享
周末、晚班滚动开班 
24+35+35+6课时 
