(Only) Just-In-Time: Japanisation and the `Non-Learning' Firm

Abstract

This article examines the events within a small manufacturing organisation during a period of `adoption' by a larger customer organisation. The focus of the study concerns the nature and level of adaptation to Japanese manufacturing methods through the customer's influence. The particular circumstances of the two companies at the outset was an ideal scenario for what just-in-time lIT) and Total Quality Management (TQM) protagonists have termed `supplier adoption' and what others have defined as `emulation' within a process of `Japanisation'. The findings indicate that while there are pressures in working for a JIT customer, the outcome is not the mere reciprocation of JIT methodology within a supplier. Reasons for this lack of adaptation are proposed and implications for the debate on Japanisation and the supply-chain labour process are discussed.

Geography of Production Linkages in the Irish and Scottish Microcomputer Industry: The Role of Logistics

“…It has been suggested that these systems are suboptimal and hold no benefit for the supply chain as a whole, since the costs of inventory remain in the system (Lamming 1993). Suppliers are allegedly forced to "eat" inventories (Morris, Munday, and Wilkinson 1993;Roper, Prabhu, and van Zwanenberg 1997), and the burden of inventory is simply transferred from the customers to the suppliers. However, the use of hubs, in itself, does not necessarily mean that the supply system is suboptimal.…”

The HR implications of supply chain relationships

“…This partly depends on the closeness of the buyer/supplier relationship (Hunter et al, 1996), but even in apparently favourable circumstances HR practices may appear relatively immune. This is illustrated by a recent study of a small UK single source supplier to a Japanese ® rm in the motor industry (Roper et al, 1997). This study found that new procedures associated with JIT were fully implemented in the areas of ® nance and contracts, involving changes in delivery practices and defect ratings.…”

Integrating the supply chain: industrial relations implications in US grocery distribution

“…Finally, a third group of literature has focused upon the implications of closer relations between enterprises within a supply chain and how this might affect human resource and other organisational practices. In some studies such diffusion has been presented as the outcome of unequal power relations between enterprises resulting in the imposition of new human resource and production practices by dominant larger firms upon smaller dependent organisations (Greig, 1990;Roper et al, 1997). Alternatively other researchers have presented a more nuanced interpretation, in which supply chain relationships may act as a variable form of institutional innovation often subject to internal contradictions and conflict (Doel, 1999;Hughes, 1999;Scarbrough, 2000).…”