Trent sociology and comparative development studies professor Chris Huxley, University of Western Ontario sociology professor James Rinehart and Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) director of work reorganization and training David Robertson attribute workers' disillusionment to lean production itself rather than to North American managers' inadequate implementation in their book Just Another Car Factory? Lean Production and Its Discontents, published this fall by Cornell University Press. "This is the first study of a Japanese or joint venture plant in North America to draw information, systematically and across time, from a randomly selected sample of workers and to have such unlimited access to the shop floor," the authors claim in their introduction to the 232-page study. With co-operation from union and factory owners both, they conducted surveys, interviewed unionized workers and manager and made shop-floor observations in 1990-91, updating their material in 1996.

        Among those the authors acknowledged for their help with the book were four associated with Trent: Audio Visual Department assistant Lynn Cummings and former master's-level student Sue Paterson for transcribing tapes; and graduates Kaiyu Wang and Cynthia Johnson for research assistance.