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Remade in America: Transplanting and Transforming Japanese Management Systems (Japan Business and Economics Series) PDF

433 Pages·1999·23.23 MB·English
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Japan Business and Economics Series This series provides a forum for empirical and theoretical work on Japanese business enterprises, Japanese management practices, and the Japanese economy. Japan continues to grow as a major economic world power, and Japanese companies create products and deliver services that compete successfully with those of the best firms around the world. Much can be learned from an understanding of how this has been accomplished and how it is being sustained. The series aims to balance empirical and theoretical work, always in search of a deeper understanding of the Japanese phenomenon. It also implicitly takes for granted that there are significant differences between Japan and other countries and that these differences are worth knowing about. The series editors expect books published in the series to present a broad range of work on social, cultural, economics, and political institutions. If, as some have predicted, the twenty-first century sees the rise of Asia as the most powerful economic region in the world, the rest of the world needs to understand the country that is, and will continue to be, one of the major players in this region. Editorial Board Jenny Corbett Hiroyuki Odagiri University of Oxford University of Tsukuba Mark Fruin Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara San Jose State University University of Toyko Coordinating Editor T T . _ . . Hugh Patrick Tsuneo Kagono Columbia University Kobe University . Eleanor Westney Fumio Kodama Massachusetts Institute of Research Center for Advanced Technology Science and Technology japan Business and Economics Series Engineered in Japan: Japanese Technology-Management Practices Jeffrey K. Liker, John E. Ettlie, and John C. Campbell, editors Japan's Computer and Communications Industry: 'The Evolution of Giants and Global Competitiveness Martin Fransman Technology and Industrial Development in Japan Hiroyuki Odagiri and Akira Goto Knowledge Works: Managing Intellectual Capital at Toshiba Mark Fruin Networks, Markets, and the Pacific Rim: Studies in Strategy Mark Fruin, editor Innovation in japan Akira Goto and Hiroyuki Odagiri, editors Knowledge-Driven Work: Unexpected Lessons from Japanese and United States Work Practices Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld et al. Japanese Multinationals Abroad Schon Beechler and Allan Bird, eds. Remade in America: Transplanting and Transforming Japanese Management Systems Jeffrey K. Liker, W. Mark Fruin, and Paul S. Adler, eds. Remade in America Transplanting and Transforming Japanese Management Systems Edited by Jeffrey K. Liker W. Mark Fruin Paul S. Adler New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1999 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Remade in America : transplanting and transforming Japanese management systems / edited by Jeffrey K. Liker, W. Mark Fruin, Paul S. Adler. p. cm. — (Japan business and economics series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-511815-4 I. Industrial management—Japan—Case studies. 2. Industrial management—United States—Case studies. 3. Technology transfer—Japan—Case studies. 4. Technology transfer—United States—Case studies. 5. Comparative management. I. Liker, Jeffrey K. II. Fruin, W. Mark, 1943- III. Adler, Paul S. IV. Series. HD70.J3 R46 1999 658.4'00952—dell 98-24205 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface In 1991, at the instigation of Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the U.S. Congress provided $10 million to the Department of Defense to establish a program for U.S.-Japanese industry and technology management training. The goal of the program was to improve American industrial competitiveness by helping to develop engineers and managers who can speak Japanese and thus learn about Japanese technology management practices directly from experience in Japan during the course of their academic and professional careers. Another chief component of the program was to research and analyze the technology management practices that give top Japanese companies a competitive edge in their industries. The University of Michigan's Japan Tech- nology Management Program (JTMP) was one of the first recipients of a grant from this program, administered by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) (over time, twelve such programs were funded by AFOSR). The JTMP focused much of its early efforts on research covering a broad spectrum of the technology life cycle, from basic research to manufac- turing. One product of that early effort was Engineered in Japan: Japanese Technology Management Practices (Oxford University Press, 1995), which went on to win a 1996 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing Re- search. Now we are happy to share this second book focusing on Japanese manufacturing management systems as they have been brought over to the United States in what some call "transplant operations." At the time the idea for this book evolved in 1996, the JTMP had been in operation for five years. It seemed time to begin another major book- writing effort. Mark Fruin, on the faculty at the University of British Colum- bia, was visiting the University of Michigan for several years, and Paul Adler VI PREFACE at the University of Southern California agreed to join our team. We all had direct experience with Japanese manufacturing operations in the United States and agreed on three things: first, there were some truly high-performing Jap- anese manufacturing plants in the United States; second, some top U.S. firms were emulating successful manufacturing practices from Japanese plants lo- cated in both Japan and the United States; third, the management systems in these Japanese transplants and in their U.S.-owned emulators were neither exactly like what we had seen in Japan nor like traditional American plants— they were hybrids. In addition, there were still legions of traditional American plants that clearly had not learned the lessons available to them from world- class Japanese operations. We concluded that it was urgent to identify the ways in which the approaches that had proven themselves in Japanese man- ufacturing could be effectively brought to the United States. We therefore decided to create an edited volume that would bring together the most knowledgable scholars in the field to summarize the available evi- dence and present the most compelling theories. Early in 1996, we identified these scholars and invited them to draft papers for the projected volume. That September, we invited the authors and a number of other experts to a con- ference in Ann Arbor. At the conference, each paper was critiqued by the other attendees; we conducted a broad-ranging discussion of the key issues underlying the projected volume, and authors were encouraged to rework their papers to incorporate the results of this discussion. The resulting papers constitute the chapters in this book (some will also appear in different ver- sions in journals). As editors, we drafted an introductory chapter that pro- vided a conceptual framework for the collection. What emerges is a complex, multifaceted, but coherent picture of the transfer of Japanese manufacturing management principles to the United States. Taken as a whole, the chapters make clear that this transfer is not linear and mechanical but, rather, a complex and evolutionary process. As we plunge into an increasingly global economy, we need to learn how better to manage that process. We hope the present volume offers some conceptual handles on that huge challenge. This book was written for scholars interested in Japanese business, engi- neering, and manufacturing management and for managers and engineers with interests in manufacturing. The chapters provided a mix of in-depth case studies, conceptual frameworks, and statistical studies. We have avoided spe- cialized academic jargon, though we assume some familiarity with basic con- cepts of Japanese manufacturing methods (e.g., JIT, pull systems, and SPC) and with general management concepts. Many people and organizations made this book possible. We must first thank our contributors, who joined this venture without realizing how de- manding the editors would be. We also thank colleagues who are not rep- resented in this volume but who participated in the September 1996 confer- ence as discussants and reviewers and who significantly shaped the book: Steve Babson, Bruce Kogut, Will Mitchell, and Mayer Zald. We thank the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for its financial support and, in par- PREFACE Vii ticular, Koto White, who ran the program at AFOSR, for her enthusiastic and effective leadership. We greatly appreciate the hard work and dedication beyond the call of duty of Heidi Tietjen, associate director of the Japan Tech- nology Management Program. One of our inspirational leaders for this book was John Shook, director of JTMP, who provided sage advice at our confer- ence and influenced our thinking in countless ways through sharing his ex- periences in bringing the Toyota Production System to the United States. John Campbell and Brian Talbott, codirectors of JTMP, also contributed wit, wis- dom, and generous support. Finally, we thank Herb Addison at Oxford Uni- versity Press for his invaluable support and encouragement. Ann Arbor, Michigan J. K. L. San Jose, California W. M. F. Los Angeles, California P. S. A. February 1998 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Chapter 2: This article is an extended version of an article in the Journal of World Business (Pil and MacDuffie 1999). It is based in part on research at NUMMI conducted jointly with David Levine and Barbara Goldoftas. Partial funding was provided by MIT's International Motor Vehicle Program. This version has benefited from comments by Ed Lawler, Terje Gronning, Charles Heckscher, Seok-Woo Kwon, Katherine Xin, and other contributors to this volume. Chapter 4: We are grateful to NSK Corporation for opening the door to us, providing generously of staff time, and openly sharing information with us. Specific individuals at NSK who gave generously of their time and support include S. Fuchigami, H. Otsuka, D. Rathmann, D. Reinhart, H. Tazaki, and T. Yano. Professors Paul Adler, Susan Helper, Bruce Kogut, and Eleanor Westney offered valuable comments on earlier drafts. This project was sup- ported by a faculty fellowship from Joel Tauber Manufacturing Institute and support from the Japan Technology Management Program at the University of Michigan (under Air Force Office of Scientific Research grant DOD-G- F49620-93-1-0612). Chapter 5: An abridged version of this chapter appeared in California Man- agement Review, vol. 39, no. 4 (summer 1997). We are grateful to Honda of America Manufacturing and the Honda suppliers who generously provided time and access to their operations for this project. Thanks also to Paul Adler, Robert Cole, Mark Fruin, Martin Kenney, Ann Marie Knott, David Levine, Jeffrey Liker, Charles Sabel, and participants in Wharton's Organizational

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