Multi-functional Factories

Abstract

A questionnaire distributed to domestic factories belonging to Japan's electric and electronics industry revealed three results: (1) regardless of the significant shift of production functions to sites outside Japan, approximately 90% of domestic locations are able to complete production functions to a high degree; (2) approximately 54% of locations are able to complete design functions to a high degree, whereas 24% are able to do so to a low degree; and (3) domestic production sites that are able to completely fulfill multiple functions (design/production engineering/production) have the following traits: 1) they are superior to their rivals at delivery accuracy and speed and better at responding to market needs and 2) they are superior to their transplants in China/ASEAN countries at making proposals and developing new products. This suggests that multi-functional a) Faculty of Economics, Seikei University, 3-3-1 Kichijoji-kitamachi, Musashino-shi, Tokyo, Japan, mfukuzawa@econ.seikei.ac.jp b) Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, inamizu@e.u-tokyo.ac.jp A version of this paper was presented at the ABAS Conference 2017 Winter (Fukuzawa & Inamizu, 2017). © 2017 Mitsuhiro Fukuzawa and Nobuyuki Inamizu. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Characteristics of Project Organisations of the Japanese Construction Industry Focusing on the Modularity of Components

“…In this case, although there is a tendency for costs to increase, overall performance can be improved by integrating many elements (Bennett, 1991). It can be concluded that this fact is compatible with the characteristics and tendencies of other industries in Japan (Takeishi, 2002;Shintaku, 2008;Fukuzawa and Inamizu, 2017), and could be demonstrated to be one of the factors that contribute to the discussion on the comparison of industrial characteristics.…”

Customization management in supplier performance

“…Despite that, it is more difficult to create collaborative relationships with foreign partners than with domestic partners; customization requests are still the norm in some industries (Nakagawa & Song, 2016). If Japanese companies are able to make proposals to their overseas customers, it is very likely that their domestic production sites will become a strength to them as they globalize (Fukuzawa & Inamizu, 2017).…”

Factory strategy

“…There have been subsequent studies based on the above framework regarding manufacturing strategy and organizational outcomes (Alves, Filho, Nogueira, & Bento, 2015;Boyer & Lewis, 2002;da Silveira & Sousa, 2010;Frohlich & Dixon, 2001;Gonzalez-Benito & Lannelogue, 2014;Joshi, Kathuria, & Porth, 2003;Peng, Schroeder, & Shah, 2011;Rosenzweig & Easton, 2010;Schroeder, Bates, & Junttila, 2002;Ward, Bickford, & Leong, 1996;Ward & Duray, 2000;Ward, Leong, & Boyer, 1994, Ward, McCreery, & Anand, 2007Ward, McCreery, Ritzman, & Sharma, 1998). These studies focused on (1) the relationship between priorities among QCDFs related to competitiveness and organizational outcomes;…”