Americans can build good cars; they're doing it in Marysville, Ohio.

• Author: Krause, Kitry

AMERICANS CAN BUILD GOOD CARS

On the edge of an old woodlot in the middle of the flat farmland of Ohio sits America's fourth largest auto manufacturer. Not American Motors. Honda of America. The first Honda Accord built in the U.S. pulled off the assembly line in November 1982; only three years later, Honda's production had moved ahead of Volkswagen's, now number six, and then American Motors's. This year, Honda plans to double production. Each year, the Accord has been named by Car and Driver one of the ten best cars in the world. In 1985, the magazine stretched its superlatives to the limit and said, "There's nothing wrong with a Honda Accord. Nothing.' With that kind of reputation for quality and design, Honda has barely been able to keep up with the demand. In February, when GM dealers had a 70-day supply of cars on hand and AMC dealers had an embarrassing 117, Honda dealers averaged a nine-day supply. In the first quarter of this year, Honda was the only American manufacturer to increase sales.

In 1980, when American companies were shifting pieces of their production to cheaper labor markets in Japan, Korea, and Mexico, Honda came to America to build its third auto plant. Its dealers groaned that American workers wouldn't be able to produce the same quality as the Japanese, and its financial analysts said it couldn't make a profit. Both fears proved wrong. Although Honda won't disclose the portion of its worldwide consolidated profit that comes from Honda of America, industry analysts say it's significant. The fall of the dollar, which has made Japanese imports more expensive, and continued quotas on imports can only make the American division more profitable.

Honda's quiet success in the backyard of American car manufacturers--and with American workers--seems to prove that there is a way to resurrect this country's heavy industries. Its success comes from its designs and engineering, from its efficiently laid-out plant, from its fanatical insistence on high-quality parts, but most of all from the productivity of its workers. That productivity comes not only because workers know that Honda's existence and their jobs depend on increasing productivity, but because workers are trusted to build that productivity themselves. That egalitarianism is reflected even in such simple things as everyone parking where he pleases in the lot, everyone wearing the same uniform, everyone eating in the same cafeteria, everyone going by his first name.

The virtue of this style of management is simple: workers who feel they have a real stake in a business work harder and more carefully, and are willing to work wherever they're needed. Intangibles, perhaps, but the cumulative potential--especially in an increasingly competitive industry--is enormous. Yet the trust that results from an honestly shared effort is easily undercut, particularly in a huge factory where the work is inherently tedious and pressured. Honda's effort is hardly perfect, but its struggle to create a humane workplace has so far given it much of its jump in the American market.

No collar capitalism

I had been invited to visit the Marysville, Ohio, plant in late April. I arrived at 7:30 a.m., a full hour after the first shift started, and parked where I pleased in the lot. My guide for the day, Roger Lambert, took me first into the office, which is one huge, unpartitioned room full of desks, file cabinets, and computer terminals. The president's desk, he pointed out, simply sits in one corner, next to a number of others. Everyone was in the same white uniform with his or her first name embroidered on it. No suits and no ties. There are no personal secretaries for the managers. If they are at their desks, they answer their own phones; if not, whoever is nearby takes a message. Parked at one end of the room were the two car models built at the plant, a knot of people standing beside them, and a sign that read "Washington Square' above. Lambert clearly was pleased to have such a whimsy to explain. This, he said, is the spot where no one may tell a lie, where any concern workers or engineers have about the cars being built must be stated.

As we strode off to the morning managers meeting, Lambert asked me how many companies I knew that would let me sit in on a meeting of top executives and managers. The meeting started at exactly eight o'clock. Short reports from the assembly line managers were given on accidents, rejection rates, downtime, and "countermeasures' for problems. Some managers asked for help solving problems, and Shin Ohkubo, an executive vice-president, reminded them to be sure to ask production workers for their suggestions. When the meeting broke up, most headed for the assembly line, not their desks. Lambert and I followed them into the plant.

The 1.7 million square feet of the plant is an awesome confusion of bright lights and moving machinery. Fifteen miles of conveyors cross and recross each other around and above the two half-mile main lines, cradling windshields, seats, and steering wheels that are directed by computer to arrive at each work station just as they're needed. Forklifts and trains of carts snake back and forth, ferrying the parts the conveyors don't. Two robot carts run alongside the line, following their magnetic tracks and playing their own synthesizer tunes to warn you they're coming. Their Japanese melodies fade quickly in the din of buzzing air guns, clanking presses, and sputtering welding robots. At one end of the plant, rolls of steel are pressed into doors and hoods; at the other, sleek Accords speed off the conveyor.

The plant's efficient layout is one reason Honda can produce a hundred more cars each day than...