The Myth of Japanese Efficiency: The World Car Industry in a Globalizing AgeCombining case studies with accessible but rigorous production models and historical background, this provocative book challenges accepted views on Japanese production methods in the world car industry. The book argues that the 'lean and flexible' production model popularly associated with Toyota MC is a myth, but one which sheds light on cultural responses to the attendant stresses of globalization. To illustrate this, Dan Coffey provides individual studies of process flexibility, labour productivity and the re-organization of work in the global car industry. Wider evaluations of Japanese impacts on the global economy and a resurgent Western capitalism are then made, progressing the case for a fundamental re-assessment of the narratives informing popular accounts of Japan's manufacturing success. Beginning with the fictionalization of history and propagation of empirical counterfactuals and finishing with observations on the wider impact of the 'lean and flexible' approach, the bold and controversial conclusion reacheld by the author is that what is at stake is our understanding of the form and meaning of 'production fantasy'. The Myth of Japanese Efficiency casts a familiar debate in an unfamiliar light. It will strongly appeal to management and business strategy academics, political economists and industrial sociologists interested in the debate on Fordist versus 'post-Fordist' production methods/'lean and flexible' manufacture and Japanese post-war success in the world market for manufactured goods. Human resource management specialists interested in best production practice will also find much to interest them within this book. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 31
... observations made by the present writer on the progress and impact of Rover Group experiments with ' Japanese ' production methods in the period between 1989 , when the corpora- tion was reconstituted under the Rover brand - name as ...
... observations clustered in the bottom right - hand corner of the scatter , represented here by the region J. Interested readers can compare this with the actual scatter published in Womack et al . ( 1990 : 95 , see also Krafcik 1989 ) ...
... observation lying below the line . Too much should not be made of this given the problems we go on to raise about the manner in which shift work was handled in the IMVP survey , but using similar data and excluding the observations ...
Contents
Introducing the myth of Japanese efficiency | 1 |
a myth encountered | 15 |
the BMWRover Group controversy | 44 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown