Japanese manufacturing: strategy and practice

A striking characteristic of Japanese factories is the extent of process control: from both the technical and the social viewpoint the labour and production system is controlled down to the very last detail. The characteristics of management and organization which underlie this are closely interwoven with Japanese culture. This explains why the work content, working conditions and working relationships in the factories look so different from those in western cultures. The paper shows why factories in the West cannot and should not copy Japanese factories