[Excerpt] The globalization of product markets has intensified competition in an increasingly wide array of industries, including automobiles, consumer electronics,steel, and computer chips to name just a few. In manufacturing as a whole during the last thirty years, productivity growth in the U.S. has lagged significantly behind that of Japan, Germany, Sweden, and many other industrialized countries. For example, between 1960 and 1985, the annual growth in manufacturing productivity (output per hour) was 2.7 percent in the U.S. compared with 8.0 percent in Japan. Unless this trend can be turned around, U.S. companies will find it increasingly difficult to compete in the world market.