The line graph compares the time spent on producing one vehicle by four car manufacturers based in the USA- namely Nissan, Dalmler Chrysler (DC), General Motors (GM), and Ford- from 1998 to 2002. Units are measured in hours per vehicle.Overall, there was a general decline in the trends of each car producer, meaning over time, it took fewer hours to manufacture one car. Ford stood out as the only exception to this shift, gradually spending more time to assemble a car. It is also notable that Nissan became the fastest car producer, even if it was the slowest initially.
With regard to the company which experienced the most pronounced change – Nissan – spending about 37 hours to put together a car, it improved the efficiency, diminishing this time dramatically to 24 hours by 2000. This was followed by a further gradual decline, eventually turning into the fastest car manufacturer, producing one car in less than a day (about 22 hours) in 2002.Nissan was closely followed by DC and GM companies, starting at 34 and 32 hours in 1998, respectively. However, the former manufacturer started to spend fewer hours, cutting them by 2 hours in 1999, and levelling off at this point until 2001, further declined to 28 hours by the end of the period. GM mirrored this trend, albeit with a more abrupt decrease. In detail, it experienced an 8-hour decline, with its trend continuously falling to 24 hours in 2002.
Ford, on the other hand, went against the crowd, showing an upward trend. Starting at about 25 hours, it gradually rose to 26 hours to produce one car in 2001. Despite a fall by 1 hour in 2002, it still marked a general rise in its car manufacturing time.