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This article presents information on the manufacturing processes at the European auto components industry. In the case of the European auto industry, the news has not generally been good. In 1993, two reports showed the European industry to be trailing its international counterparts. One of these branded the whole industry as uncompetitive and predicted up to 400,000 job losses. The other focused specifically on comparisons between Japan and Great Britain and concluded that Japan was out-performing Great Britain by a factor of 2:1 on productivity and a much greater margin on quality. Management practices were assessed in a number of ways. The leanness of factory operations was measured by the inventories of specific, named parts at various stages along the process, and also by the amount of effort going into rework and repair versus first-time production. Work organization was gauged by the use of teams on the shopfloor and, the amount of responsibility vested in these teams. Problem solving was gauged by the use of suggestion schemes, the number of suggestions per employee and, the use and activity of problem-solving groups such as quality circles. Relationships along the supply chain were gauged by considering buffering between the focal plants and their customers and suppliers, information exchange, joint problem-solving activity and so on.