Abstract
Are lean production and globalization the conditions of success for the automobile firms in the next decade? The performances of firms depend on profit strategy relevance and productive system coherence, and not on implementation of principles and methods supposed to be effective anywhere.
In the past, there are been more than one high-performing industrial model, there is more than one now, and there probably will be more than one in the future. The paper exposes the possible ways for automakers at the turning point of century.