The development of the Hyundai Production System: The historical evolution

While the Toyota Production System (TPS) and its derivations have been widely adopted by industrial or services organizations along the past 50 years, alternative production systems have shown relevant results. In recent decades, a Korean vehicle producer has attracted attention due to its significant raise of market-share in the automotive world industry. The Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) developed a production system characterized by: Modularization, Automation, Just-in-Sequence, Supply Chain Management, and Flexible Manufacturing Systems. Based on literature and documental review, this paper discusses critical incidents and key features that shaped the Hyundai Production System (HPS). The paper chronologically characterizes the critical incidents identified, and analyzes the attempts to introduce different features in this system, considering these events. As main result, the influence of contextual features and historical events on the decisions made by the HMC are analyzed, seeking to provide better understanding about the development of HPS.