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
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... period , from an apparently promising position in the early 1960s the British industry passed through two phases : a period of ' unam- biguous ' , if relative , decline in car ( and commercial vehicle ) production when compared to the ...
... period in which the relocation of production overseas in the car and other industries has been marked . 17 In the car industry Japan's domes- tic car production fell by almost 3 million units in the aggregate between 1990 and 1993 ...
... period that contradict the terms of the emerged ' truth ' about the era of Fordist mass production - ' YOU end up with a car that has the features you decided to have . . . That's the whole point of our policy of offering so many cars ...
Contents
Introducing the myth of Japanese efficiency | 1 |
a myth encountered | 15 |
the BMWRover Group controversy | 44 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown