The History of a Mother Factory

Oki, Kiyohiro

doi:10.7880/abas.0151111a

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(24 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Many players in Japan have shifted their mass-production sites to China and other overseas sites elsewhere, shrinking the scale of their domestic factories. As Japan's firms found their footing overseas, the question of establishing international sites for development, production, and sales functions has become a significant one (Amano, 2005;Oki, 2015Oki, , 2016. As this shift overseas continues to be stimulated and incentivized, Japan's domestic sites have assumingly come to serve the critical role of the "mother factory," supporting the growth and development of their transplants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-functional Factories

Fukuzawa

Inamizu

2017

ABAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-functional Factories

Fukuzawa

Inamizu

2017

ABAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In prior studies, a mother factory has been viewed as "a unit that continuously supports overseas factories" (Oki, 2016). However, the system of division of labor used by Company A was different from the mother factory system of prior studies (Oki, 2016;Suh, 2012;Yamaguchi, 1996Yamaguchi, , 1997Yamaguchi, , 2006.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…However, the system of division of labor used by Company A was different from the mother factory system of prior studies (Oki, 2016;Suh, 2012;Yamaguchi, 1996Yamaguchi, , 1997Yamaguchi, , 2006. The overseas factories of Company A were not being supported but rather the customers of Company A were supported, and the system was a means of supplying "technical support services for customers" overseas, the customers in this case being Japanese firms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Facade Mother Factory for Correspondence of Customer’s Mother Factory System

Hamamatsu

2017

ABAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The mother factory system is said to have broadly diffused the system of international division of labor used by Japanese manufacturers. However, is that truly the case? This paper provides an example of a supplier having a "facade mother factory" to respond to the demands of assembly manufacturer customers. This facade mother factory was not "a unit that continuously supports overseas factories," as defined in prior studies. Instead, it was rather a "mother factory" needed as a facade to provide technical support services for customers, who happened to be Japanese companies.

show abstract

“…How those systems are transferred overseas is broadly discussed (Abo, Itagaki, Kamiyama, Kawamura, & Kumon, 1991;Liker, Fruin, & Adler, 1999;Yamaguchi, 2006). The Japanese production system has been researched for its high performance and productivity (Fukuzawa, 2015;Mukai, 2015), and the mother factory system has been used to transfer production systems overseas (Nakayama, 2003;Oki, 2011Oki, , 2015Oki, , 2016Yamaguchi, 2006). Nakayama (2003) defines the mother factory system (or mother plant system) as a technical support method.…”

Section: Transferring the Production Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mother Factory vs. Model Factory

Suh

2016

ABAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The production systems of Japanese companies are considered to be firm-specific advantages, which lead to superior productivity. The mother factory system, exemplified by Toyota Motor Corporation, has been used as a primary method for transferring Japanese production systems overseas. However in recent years, some companies, such as Hyundai Motor Company of Korea, have begun using a different way to transfer production methods overseas. This paper terms this method the "model factory system" and compares it with the mother factory system within the framework of knowledge transfer theory. In this framework, production systems are regarded as knowledge held by the home country. In this analytical framework, members, tools, and manuals represent knowledge that is directly moved; skills, organizations, and layouts represent knowledge that can be reproduced by the recipient. This framework was used to analyze cases of production system transfer overseas by Toyota Motor a) Manufacturing Management Research Center, Graduate School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, ruiberd@gmail.com A version of this paper was presented at the ABAS Conference 2016 Summer (Suh, 2016). © 2016 Youngkyo Suh. 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. 252Corporation and Hyundai Motor Company. It was shown that the mother factory system primarily transfers knowledge from the home country's factories, whereas the model factory system transfers knowledge from the corporate headquarters.

show abstract

The History of a Mother Factory

Cited by 6 publications

References 21 publications

Multi-functional Factories

Multi-functional Factories

Facade Mother Factory for Correspondence of Customer’s Mother Factory System

Mother Factory vs. Model Factory

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About