Word: mazda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...down. The rear is compact, musclebound and squat, accentuated by sculpted fairings behind the seats. The overall profile conveys a neat blend of attitude: a little daring, just shy of being menacing. It doesn't drip machismo like Nissan's 350Z or feature the delicate bone structure of a Mazda Miata. With a starting price around $20,000 the Solstice is the cheapest roadster on the market (a hair under the new Mazda MX-5). GM plans to produce just 16,000 to 18,000 units for the 2006 model year and dealers are already asking several thousand dollars over...
...threat of Hurricane Rita. In more than two hours at one point, they'd moved less than 2 miles. "We're not moving at all. People are getting out of their cars and walking around, walking their dogs," says my sister, Kerry, 37, who is driving mom's white Mazda Tribute. "Men are getting out of their cars and peeing on the side of the road." The women so far, Kerry says, are more reluctant, but desperate times may call for desperate measures...
...Mazda officials praised their American students for being hardworking and eager to learn but noted that some ingrained attitudes needed changing. Said Motoyama: "The Americans don't seem to be very good at deciding things in groups. Each individual has a very strong opinion of his own. They have to learn to step back and accept other ideas...
Labor-management relations will be especially delicate. As Mazda fills the 3,500 jobs at the new facility, the company has been giving preference to laid-off Ford workers, most of whom are members of the United Auto Workers. The U.A.W., which has saluted Mazda's Hofu training program as part of an "enlightened approach" to operating in the U.S., intends to organize the entire Flat Rock work force. That would create the closest partnership yet between a Japanese car company and an American union. Although Toyota's joint car-building venture with General Motors in Fremont, Calif., employs U.A.W...
...Japan last week, Mazda's new American employees were learning things they never heard much about at the union hall. In particular, they were lectured about the Japanese tradition of kaizen, meaning a worker's commitment to finding ways to do his job better and more efficiently. On the Hofu assembly line, a group of Americans clutching stopwatches and clipboards hovered around Kazuyuki Toda, a Japanese worker, as he demonstrated how to do a job poorly, with too much muda, or wasted motion. The Americans were then asked to suggest ways of doing the job faster. Their ideas ranged from...