This book provides insights into Japanese production and operations management through the roles and human resource management of Japanese manufacturing engineers and how their roles contribute to efficient manufacturing. The book looks at six industries i.e. automobile, electronics, business machine industries of the parts processing and assembly sector, steel, chemical and pharmaceutical industries of the material processing sector, and 13 Japanese leading multinational companies. It also compares Japanese automotive firms with their German, French, and American counterparts. The analysis reveals that many managers, employees, and scholars underappreciate the roles and contributions of manufacturing engineers in the United States. The book will offer invaluable lessons to management scholars interested in operations management and global supply chains, especially in the context of the Japanese manufacturing industry.

With the service industry taking up the largest portion of its GDP, Japan has much to share in the area of managing service industry. This book explores and elucidates the unique management styles in non-manufacturing industries or service industries in contemporary Japan, both practically and theoretically through case studies. These specially selected cases are the management of the world No.1 convenience store chain of Seven-Eleven, the sales finance business and auto sales business of Toyota, application of TPS (Toyota Production System) to life insurance company, performance evaluation of local government, BSC (balance scorecard) in local government hospitals, cost and pricing policy of telecommunication company, Japanese-style OC hospitalityOCO in the retail industry, service level agreement (SLA) in IT and shared service companies, and ICT (Information & Communication Technology) applied to BPN (Business Process Network) of service industry.The analyses presented in this book were carefully laid out in regard to the business in general. It will be useful for business practitioners in service industry and beneficial to the scholars, students or general readers interested in this area.

After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.

This book outlines the particulars of Japanese management and how modern Japanese management employs many practices which are very successful and worth adopting. The main objective of this book is to illustrate the many teachings that Japanese management practice can offer the rest of the world. The book thus targets managers who deal with Japanese business partners, or work in Japan, students of Japanese Studies, Asian Studies or International Business.

The material is concerned with fundamental activities of organizations - how they provide goods and services. The increase in international competition has seen a resurgence of interest in the development of this field.

This book focuses on various business practices to manage ailing companies during economic depression or in the aftermath of man-made and natural disasters. The methods implemented by various Japanese enterprises, such as Japan Air Line, Tokyo Electricity Company, Nissan and Toyota, to overcome their challenges are elaborated in this book. The scope of the book covers: restructuring under government financial support; private turnaround management of huge conglomerates; reorganization of business domains; accounting for risk management, and robust supply chain management in the aftermath of disasters.

Engineered in Japan presents a unique and comprehensive examination of technology management in the most successful Japanese companies: unique in that all chapters go beyond superficial descriptions of stylized practices to look in depth at particular issues, often contradicting or qualifying the conventional wisdom; comprehensive in that it covers the entire technology life cycle from basic R&D, to development engineering, to manufacturing processes, to learning from the Japanese. Each chapter is based on original research by noted scholars in the field, and identifies technology management practices that have become a major source of competitive advantage for highly successful Japanese companies. Engineered in Japan documents the best practices from such companies as Toyota, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Nippondenso, and discusses how these technology management practices can be usefully adopted in other cultural contexts. Going beyond past observations, the authors all delve below the surface of Japanese management approaches. They look more closely than has been done before at how particular methods are applied, and they identify some new practices that have not yet been highlighted in books on Japanese methods. Presenting recent data that contradict some conventional thinking about U.S.-Japanese differences, they look at old techniques from a new perspective. "U.S. managers can perhaps learn more from the process of creation in Japan and the organizational structures that support innovation," say the editors in their introduction, "than from the particular approaches, tools, and technologies created." A running theme throughout the book is that Japanese managers and engineers tend to think in terms of systems, focusing not just on the parts but on the connections between them. Engineered in Japan is must reading for technology managers and engineers, along with anyone interested in Japanese business, engineering, and management.