Hybrid Factories in the United States The Japanese-Style Management and Production System under the Global Economy

by Kawamura, Tetsuji

• ISBN13: 9780195311969
• ISBN10: 0195311965
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Hybrid Factory in the United States will be the English translation of a book published in April 2005 by Toyo Keizai Shinpo Sha, a leading business publisher in Japan. The book is the outcome of an extraordinarily comprehensive field survey of Japanese auto and electronics factories in North America by the Japan Multinational Enterprise Study Group (JMNESG). This extensive project, conducted in North America in 2000-2001, covers 81 factories in the course of assessing the transferability of Japanese-style management and production systems (JMS, for short) to overseas factories owned by Japanese companies. All of the book's investigations are based on a common methodology, which the editor and contributors call a "hybridization analysis"; it quantifies the degree to which features of the Japanese system have been transplanted, using an elaborate checklist and scoring system. This common methodology allows the contributors to make detailed inter-regional comparisons by analyzing the different hybridization patterns in each region. The sheer amount of raw data will be enormously helpful to researchers and students in international business who are examining the diffusion of high performance management and production methods in new environments. This book, with its wealth of data, should serve as a handy reference volume to students and scholars in business schools taking strategic management courses with a focus on international business, as well as practitioners and managers of transplants in the car and electronics sectors, and economists and social scientists interested in the issue of international management and the impact of globalization upon production models.

Author Biography

Professor of the Faculty of Economics, Hosei University, Japan; contributor to Hybrid Factory (OUP, 1994)

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Japanese-style Management and Production System in the U.S.A

Japanese and the U.S. Production System and their Vicissitudes in the United States

The significance of the Hybrid Model Analysis

Hybrid Model and the Evaluation Criteria

The Japanese Management System and Corporate Strategies

Hybrid Analysis of Japanese Transplants in the U.S.A

General Features of the Japanese Transplants in the U.S.A. -Inter-regional and inter-temporal comparisons

Automobile Industries

Automobile Industries in North America

Japanese Automobile Firms in North America

Auto Assembly

Auto parts and Components

Electronics Industries

Electronics Assembly

Other Electronics

Specific Cases of Hybrid Factories in the United States

Toyota Indiana

Toshiba

Minebea (Hansen Corporation)

GM Lansing

Situations and Cases in Mexico and Canada

Auto and Electronics Industries and the Maquiladora in Mexico

Honda in Canada and Mexico

Ford Hermosillo

Delphi Mexico

Conclusion and Prospects

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