 The back story is that as auto production grew in Australia the price of sustaining it (a price measured in the high selling prices for cars produced locally and the cost of government financial supports for exporting) grew steadily as well. By the 1980s, politicians were beginning to conclude that either the domestic industry must improve its productivity and lower its costs dramatically or the restrictions on imports needed to be relaxed or eliminated. In the spring of 1987, Bill Scales, the chairman of the new Automotive Industry Authority of Australia formed by the government to address the problem, called me at MIT to ask how the local industry could be transformed and saved. His organization joined the International Motor Vehicle Program at MIT and we talked about this challenge for many years. 背景故事是，随着澳大利亚汽车生产的增长，维持工厂运营的代价（以当地生产的汽车的高销售价格和政府出口的财政支持的成本衡量）也稳步增长。到20世纪80年代，政客们开始得出结论认为，国内工业必须提高生产率，大幅降低成本，或者需要放宽或消除进口限制。1987年春天，由政府新组建的澳大利亚汽车工业管理局的局长比尔·斯卡尔斯（Bill Scales）开始着手解决这个问题，他到麻省理工学院来拜访我，询问如何改变和保护本土产业。他的组织也加入了麻省理工学院的国际汽车计划，多年以来我们一直在谈论这个挑战。 Then something else happened: the global boom in commodities prices, fueled by the growth of China as a manufacturing country. Australia had a handful of aces in commodities – massive iron ore deposits, massive copper deposits, massive bauxite deposits, all in unpopulated areas where extraction was easy. Rather than selling companies or land to China, Australia literally sold the country, to be ground up and loaded in ultra-large ore carriers for export. The consequence was a very strong Australian dollar over many decades, making manufactured exports expensive and imports cheap. At the same time, Australia took a conservative stance toward immigration with the result that it may always be a country with a massive land area but a small population (currently 24 million) and a domestic market that is small by world standards: 1.2 million cars sold in 2016 versus 25 million in China and 90 million in the world. 另外还发生了一些事情：中国作为制造国家的增长推动了全球商品价格的上涨。澳大利亚在大宗商品方面优势明显 – 拥有大量的铁矿石、铜矿、铝土矿，大部分都分布在人口稀少的地区，开采成本很低。澳大利亚并不是向中国出售公司或土地，他们简直是在出售整个国家，开采和装载出口的超大型矿砂船随处可见。结果导致澳大利亚元几十年来一直非常坚挺，出口产品价格昂贵，进口产品价格低廉。与此同时，澳大利亚对移民采取保守态度，结果可能使得澳大利亚尽管国土面积很大，但人口数量很少（目前为2400万），以国际标准来衡量，其国内市场规模很小，2016年澳大利亚的汽车销量为120万辆，而中国的汽车销量是2500万辆，全世界是9000万辆。 Toyota did its best to deal with this situation by turning itself into an exporter of 70% of its output, almost all to the Middle East, where Toyota has long had a very strong market presence. But on a cost basis it never worked: the need to produce relatively small volumes (150,000 vehicles and 150,000 engines per year) in a high-wage country (due to the strong currency) with many imported parts from distant locations to make products for a major market on the far side of the world –even as succeeding governments continually relaxed barriers for automotive imports and local selling prices fell – meant that at best Australia was marginal financially as a manufacturing site. 丰田竭尽全力应对这种状况，将自己70％的产出用于出口，将产品几乎全部出口到中东，在那里丰田一直拥有巨大的市场份额。但在成本方面，它从来没有成功过：澳大利亚平均工资水平很高（由于强劲的货币），产量相对较小（每年15万辆和15万台发动机），许多进口零件来自遥远的地方，制造产品出口到世界最大的市场 - 即使政府不断放宽汽车进口壁垒和当地的销售价格下滑 - 这意味着丰田澳大利亚工厂的财务状况至多只能保持盈亏平衡。 Then General Motors and Ford announced in 2013 that they would leave Australia as manufacturers, pulling down the local supply base they shared with Toyota, and the national leadership of Toyota's union inexplicably decided to hold out for better benefits in a collapsing industry and went on strike in 2013. Bad things do happen even to lean companies and Toyota's conclusion at headquarters was that the long-term situation was hopeless. Automotive is a tough, global business and top-level management has to think about the greatest good for the greatest number of its people over the long term. 然后，通用汽车和福特汽车在2013年宣布，他们将停止在澳大利亚生产汽车，减少与丰田共享当地供应基地，令人难以理解的是，丰田工会的全国领导人决定要在崩溃的行业中取得更好的收益，在2013年举行了罢工。即使在精益公司，糟糕的事情也无法幸免，丰田总部得出的结论是澳洲工厂前景黯淡，令人绝望。汽车是一个艰难的全球性业务，高层管理人员必须从长远考虑大量员工的最大利益。 【特别提醒】 |
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