Car manufacturing and Japanese management: a natural fit?
A special for Asahi Shimbun attempts to explain how the Japanese car industry managed to advance so rapidly, catapulting past the United States to become the largest car producer. According to this commentator, two elements are at work here:
First is the effectiveness of Japan’s “development, production and dealing systems.” The second element is the nature of Japanese people, which I think is suited for manufacturing cars.
Factoring heavily into the “nature of Japanese people” element are Japan’s seniority-based management and lifetime employment. Despite the problems seen in other industries’ productivity due to these traditional systems, could they be a natural fit for car manufacturing? Or is something else really at work here?
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