Download or read book The Origin of Competitive Strength written by Akira Kawahara and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the war ended on August IS, 1945, I was a naval engineering cadet at the Kure Navy Yard near Hiroshima, Japan. A week later, I was demobi lized and returned to my home in Tokyo, fortunate not to find it ravaged by firebombing. At the beginning of September, a large contingent of the Ameri can occupation forces led by General Douglas MacArthur moved its base from Yokohama to Tokyo. Near my home I watched a procession of American mili tary motor vehicles snaking along Highway 1. This truly awe-inspiring cavalcade included jeeps, two-and-a-half-ton trucks, and enormous trailers mounted with tanks and artillery. At the time, I was a 21-year-old student in the Machinery Section of Engineering at the Tokyo Imperial University. Watching that mag nificent parade of military vehicles, I was more than impressed by the gap in industrial strength between Japan and the U. S. That realization led me to devote my whole life to the development of the Japanese auto industry. I wrote a small article concerning this incident in Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun (one of the leading business newspapers in Japan) on May 2, 1983. The English translation of this story was carried in the July 3, 1983 edition of the Topeka Capital-Journal and the September 13, 1983 issue of the Asian Wall Street Journal. The Topeka Capital-Journal headline read, "MacArthur's Jeeps Were the Toyota Catalyst.
Download or read book The Japanese Automotive Industry written by Robert Cole and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies reflected on the deteriorating position of the domestic auto industry in the fall of 1980, and the strong competitive threat being posed by the Japanese automakers, we were struck by the extraordinary low quality of the public discussion of these critical issues. The national importance of the issues seemed only matched by the superficiality of the analyses being offered. The tendency to think in terms of scapegoats was particularly evident. The Japanese as the basic cause of our problems has been a particularly notable theme. To be sure, cooperation with the Japanese in formulating a rational overall trade policy may be an important part of the solution. It has also been fashionable to blame it all on American auto industry management for not concentrating on the production of small cars when "everyone knew" that was the thing to do. Alternatively, government meddling was blamed for all our problems. Clearly, the complex problem we faced required more penetrating analyses. It seemed therefore, that the time was ripe for a public seminar which moved beyond the rhetoric of the moment and probed some of the deeper causes of our problems and possible directions for future policy. In holding the January 1981 auto conference, the Center took it as their task to begin addressing the critical issues facing the industry, with particular, but not exclusive, attention to examining the role of the Japanese auto industry. They had in mind not to simply conduct a rational discussion of the trade issue but to probe the sources of Japanese competitive strength, especially those features whose study might profit them. In these proceedings, they bring those discussions to a wider audience. Question and answer sessions at the conference were necessarily short and a few speakers delivered abbreviated remarks; this volume restores a number of omissions, and provides additional answers to some pertinent questions put by the audience. The Center hopes to encourage the serious problem-solving these complex issues demand. Far too much time has been spent trying to fix the blame. [intro]
Download or read book The Japanese Automobile Industry written by Michael A. Cusumano and published by Cambridge, Mass. : Published by the Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University and distributed by the Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical account of the motor vehicle industry in Japan since the 1930s, based on a case study of Toyota and Nissan - traces their origins; discusses specific industry restructuring, workers participation, trade unionism, labour relations, productivity, modernization, subsidiarys, production management and quality control. Bibliography, flow charts, graph, illustrations, statistical tables.
Download or read book The Japanese Automobile Industry written by Koichi Shimokawa and published by Athlone Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this authoritative account of the Japanese automobile industry, Professor Shimokawa focuses upon its business success as a relative latecomer to the worldwide market. He includes profiles of the leading producers, including Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi, and highlights the features of their success in management and design."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book The Japanese Auto Industry and the U S Market written by C. S. Chang and published by New York, NY : Praeger. This book was released on 1981 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Evolution of a Manufacturing System at Toyota written by Takahiro Fujimoto and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-08-12 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the true source of a firm's long-term competitive advantage in manufacturing? Through original field studies, historical research, and statistical analyses, this book shows how Toyota Motor Corporation, one of the world's largest automobile companies, built distinctive capabilities in production, product development, and supplier management. Fujimoto asserts that it is Toyota's evolutionary learning capability that gives the company its advantage and demonstrates how this learning is put to use in daily work.
Download or read book Japan and the Global Automotive Industry written by Koichi Shimokawa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Japanese automotive industry enjoyed spectacular success in the 1980s. This was largely due to the so-called 'Lean Production System' - the combination of an efficient production system, an effective supplier system, and a product development system. In the 1990s the industry fell on hard times because of the Japanese asset price bubble and extreme currency appreciation. In this book, eminent industry specialist Koichi Shimokawa draws on his thirty years of research and fieldwork with Japanese and American firms, to show how the Japanese automotive industry has managed to recover from this difficult period. He shows how firms like Toyota were able to transfer Japanese systems to overseas plants and how they have changed in order to compete in increasingly globalized markets. In addition, the book also addresses the two major challenges to the current industry model: the rise of China and the environmental and energy supply situation.
Download or read book The Automobile Industry Japan and Toyota written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Evolution of the Toyota Production System written by Kazuo Wada and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book utilizes historical evidence to describe the development of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The development of TPS typifies the transformation of production control in interchangeable industries in the twentieth century. Much of the extensive literature available on TPS has been geared toward describing TPS from a number of different perspectives. Many researchers consider TPS distinct from American mass-production systems. Although TPS (and, more generally, the production control systems in the Japanese assembly industry) has differentiated itself from similar US production systems, the evolution of TPS is largely attributable to attempts to learn from, imitate, and modify pre-World War II US production methods. Through these efforts, TPS has achieved levels of efficiency in Japan comparable to those of US production systems. Additionally, a reliance on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in relation to production control has facilitated the development of TPS. The literature on TPS, however, has largely ignored the vital relationship between ICT and production control due to an inordinate focus on “Kanban.” Kanban translates to “signboard” in Japanese but is used to refer to an organic linkage between work in preceding and subsequent production processes. This book sheds light on the development of a fully digitalized Bill of Materials (BOM) at Toyota, behind its Kanban and production control.
Download or read book The Toyota Leaders An Executive Guide written by Masaaki Sato and published by Vertical. This book was released on 2008-12-16 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "While there are many books on Toyota, they have tended to focus on "Just In Time" and other facets of the company's famously efficient floor operations and how they might be transposed to American manufacturing, with less attention paid to Toyota's overall strategic vision. This book corrects the deficit by approaching the company from a more "white collar" angle, zooming in, not on inventory management, but on business management." "Author Masaaki Sato, Japan's premier auto-industry expert, brilliantly presents his case that Toyota's strengths, including efficiency on the floor, cannot be understood or emulated outside the context of tradition-not Japan's, but Toyota's own. Inventor and Toyota Group founder Sakichi Toyoda's "Precepts" have served as the backbone of the carmaker's executive culture since its inception and, even today, guide decision-making at the top echelons." "Toyota has not always been the global powerhouse that it is today. In the difficult post-war years it very nearly went under and only survived by conducting a mass lay-off in exchange of then-president Kiichiro Toyoda's resignation; the crisis forced the company to be sundered into separate manufacturing and sales divisions that were not to be reunited again for decades. The global ascendance of an automaker long routinely derided as a "hick daimyo" for its parochial bent was never a given. Throughout its history, down to the recent string of chief executives including Hiroshi Okuda who are not from the Toyoda family, it was leadership at the top that moved the company forward - paradoxically, by harkening back to its founding vision." "Readers of The Toyota Leaders will also learn that U.S.-Japan auto-industry relations have not always, or even primarily, been one of confrontation, but rather of mutual emulation and alliance. The very idea of kaizen (reform) arose from Toyoda scion Eiji's early tutelage to Ford, and the Japanese automaker may never have made it in the U.S. market without a jump-starting partnership with General Motors." "Indeed, this book suggests, American firms would be better positioned to absorb Toyota's lessons if they enjoyed greater familiarity with its lore beyond the superficies of production, just as their Japanese counterparts have ever been mindful of the august history of American enterprise. The Toyota Leaders: An Executive Guide is a must-read for those who find themselves in a management role or intend to one day, whether or not in the auto industry."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Toyota Management System written by Yasuhiro Monden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the first comprehensive and systematic explanation of the management system that drives the world's leading automaker. The development of JIT production at Toyota and the company's achievement of unprecedented levels of productivity were made possible by its supportive, integrated management system. This book reveals for the first time exac
Download or read book The Automobile Industry Toyota and Japan written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Automobiles and the Future written by Robert Cole and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the time of the U.S.-Japan auto conferences in March 1983, the hoped-for economic recovery as manifested in auto sales had revealed itself quite modestly. Three months later, the indicators were more robust and certainly long overdue for those whose livelihood depends on the health of the industry--some of whom are university professors. With Japanese import restrictions in place until March 1984 and drastically reduced break-even points for domestic manufactures, rising consumer demand holds great promise for the industry. The rapidly rising stock prices of the auto-makers captures well the sense of heightened optimism, as do the various forecasts for improved profits. While the news is certainly welcome, it nevertheless should be greeted with caution. As Mr. Perkins noted at the conference, "we have a tendency to forget things very quickly. If we have a boom market this year, there is a good chance that a lot of things we learned will be forgotten." To put the matter differently and more bluntly, with growing prosperity there is the risk that management will fall back into old habits, making impossible the achievement of sustained quality and productivity improvement. Similarly, the commitment to develop cooperative relations with workers and suppliers will weaken. The union will be under membership pressure to retrieve concessions rather than to take the longer-term view. This longer-term view recognizes that "up-front increases" and adherence to existing work rules increasingly come at the sacrifice of future job security. Government policymakers will turn their attention away from the industry. This may not mean a great deal given how weakly focused their attentions has been during the last three years and how mixed and contradictory government auto policies have been for over a decade.
Download or read book The Automobile Industry Toyota and Japan written by Toyota Jid/mo.sha Kabushi Kaisha. International Public Affairs Division and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of Japan s Government Business Relationship written by Phyllis Genther and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the economic and political importance of the U.S.-Japan relationship and the extensive attention paid to automotive trade, few American scholars or policy makers are familiar with the history of Japanese government-business relations, either generally or for specific industries such as passenger cars. This book hopefully helps in a small way to fill that gap in our knowledge and, thus, to help strengthen the foundation from which we make public policy decisions about bilateral trade. [ix]
Download or read book Notes from Toyota land written by Darius Mehri and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996, Darius Mehri traveled to Japan to work as a computer simulation engineer within the Toyota production system. Once there, he found a corporate experience far different from what he had expected. Notes from Toyota-land, based on a diary that Mehri kept during his three years at an upper-level Toyota group company, provides a unique insider's perspective on daily work life in Japan and charts his transformation from a wide-eyed engineer eager to be part of the "Japanese Miracle" to a social critic, troubled by Japanese corporate practices. Mehri documents the sophisticated "culture of rules" and organizational structure that combine to create a profound control over workers. The work group is cynically used to encourage employees to work harder and harder, he found, and his other discoveries confirmed his doubts about the working conditions under the Japanese Miracle. For example, he learned that male employees treated their female counterparts as short-term employees, cheap labor, and potential wives. Mehri also describes a surprisingly unhealthy work environment, a high rate of injuries due to inadequate training, fast line speeds, crowded factories, racism, and lack of team support. And in conversations with his colleagues, he uncovered a culture of intimidation, subservience, and vexed relationships with many aspects of their work and surroundings. As both an engaging memoir of cross-cultural misunderstanding and a primer on Japanese business and industrial practices, Notes from Toyota-land will be a revelation to everyone who believes that Japanese business practices are an ideal against which to measure success.
Download or read book The Toyota Way Fieldbook written by Jeffrey K. Liker and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2005-10-19 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Toyota Way Fieldbook is a companion to the international bestseller The Toyota Way. The Toyota Way Fieldbook builds on the philosophical aspects of Toyota's operating systems by detailing the concepts and providing practical examples for application that leaders need to bring Toyota's success-proven practices to life in any organization. The Toyota Way Fieldbook will help other companies learn from Toyota and develop systems that fit their unique cultures. The book begins with a review of the principles of the Toyota Way through the 4Ps model-Philosophy, Processes, People and Partners, and Problem Solving. Readers looking to learn from Toyota's lean systems will be provided with the inside knowledge they need to Define the companies purpose and develop a long-term philosophy Create value streams with connected flow, standardized work, and level production Build a culture to stop and fix problems Develop leaders who promote and support the system Find and develop exceptional people and partners Learn the meaning of true root cause problem solving Lead the change process and transform the total enterprise The depth of detail provided draws on the authors combined experience of coaching and supporting companies in lean transformation. Toyota experts at the Georgetown, Kentucky plant, formally trained David Meier in TPS. Combined with Jeff Liker's extensive study of Toyota and his insightful knowledge the authors have developed unique models and ideas to explain the true philosophies and principles of the Toyota Production System.
