Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Partial correction of Taylorist separation of roles in the factory

Modifications are made to standard operations and the 'Work standard sheet' and such modifications are mostly made within the organization of the shopfloor. The routine process for modifying the 'Work standard sheet' at shopfloor level in Japanese companies is the submission of a kaizen proposal by members of the shopfloor work-group, followed by revision of the formal document on the basis of that proposal. Taking this process into account, Fujimoto maintains that kaizen in Japan involves the development of industrial engineering techniques in a bottom-up manner, with the participation of all of the company's employees, and he therefore terms the techniques used in Japanese companies 'whole-company industrial engineering' (Fujimoto, 2001: 149-152).

Fujimoto, T. (2001) Seisan Manegimento Nyumon I (Production Management I), Tokyo: Nihonkeizai Shinbunsha.



Japanese Production Management and Improvements in Standard Operations: Taylorism, Corrected Taylorism, or Otherwise?
Yutaka Tamura. Asian Business & Management. Houndmills: Dec 2006. Vol. 5, Iss. 4; pg. 507

Yutaka Tamura : School of Business Administration, Tohogakuen University, 3-11, Heiwagaoka, Meito-Ku, Nagoya 465-8515, Japan. E-mail: tamura@nagoya-toho.ac.jp


I have to mention at this point that Taylor in his Shop Management has clearly written that worker'suggestions have to be considered during the standard process development as well as afterwards. I shall give the reference for this statement.

KVSSNRAO

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