From Business System to Supply Chain and Production in Japan. Lean production and its roots in Japanese business culture

Abstract

The Japanese business environment has been studied for many years by researchers and business operators from all over the world. The Japanese culture created a business climate that is different from other industrialized economies. Gerlach defined the Japanese economy as “alliance capitalism” , an expression, which better than others, represents the relational nature of the Japanese society and business system. It is not by chance that the manufacturing and management techniques, later defined as “lean” by MIT authors, were born and raised in Japan. In this dissertation I will attempt to explain why and how these approaches are linked with the Japanese culture and the Japanese business environment. In order to understand the Japanese supply chain we first have to understand what Japanese do in their factories and how they do it. One of the main reasons of failure of foreign businesses in Japan has been their lack of understanding of the Japanese system. Production and business environment should not be considered two separate fields of study and research, and this is especially true when discussing about Japan. Japanese management techniques were developed before the 1990`s and their successes have been driven by a rapid and fast growth of the whole country-system; now, in a period of relative crisis, these techniques are still effective and implemented. The aim of this research is to analyze the JIT in Japan, considering the uniqueness of its business system, focusing on the interrelations between culture, business system and production. Starting from the systemical and institutional aspects of Japanese business and by analyzing the Toyota Production System, I will demonstrate the relations between the business system and the organization of production and of the supply chain in Japan.