The Japanese Model — What is It and to What Extent Has It Diffused to the West?

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, Japanese companies have developed a series of distinctive new approaches to the management manufacturing. The resulting changes in the level of both product and production performance in sectors such as electronics and automotives have resulted in Japan being seen as the world leader in manufacturing. These approaches have been known by many names, initially, and still in Japan as Toyota Production System, and in the West as Just-in-Time management, continuous flow production and World Class manufacturing. Most recently and probably most accurately the term lean production has been coined by Krafcik (1988) and Womack et al. (1990) based on their study of the global automotive industry. Approaches such as Total Quality Management have also been a central part of Japanese approaches.