Understanding the latest trends in manufacturing is a critical element to successfully doing business with a maquiladora. Philosophies such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing and Just-In-Time often dictate how and what a maquila does its purchasing from vendors.

 By using the example of the auto industry, we can see how different philosophies have different impacts.

 Japanese automaker Toyota created the lean manufacturing system that not only permeates the global auto industry, but also has been adopted by countless manufacturing plants across various industries around the world.

 A producer using lean manufacturing methods makes continual efforts to improve the quality of the product and refine the production process to improve efficiency. Lean production demands the elimination of waste by uncovering inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the production system, requiring fewer resources than are typically used in more traditional types of mass production, and demanding nearly perfect quality of the components used.

 Workers have greater autonomy and responsibility to ensure that defects are fixed on the assembly line rather than at the end of the assembly process. Under a lean production system, assembly plants are often close to suppliers to...

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