Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

194 R. Haak
ent from traditional methods of business rationalization as it is not a matter of
large-scale innovation but of small, but continuous improvement.
Group Work
In order to diffuse the philosophy of continuous improvement further throughout
the company, product teams on the level of work organization and personnel management
were put together under the leadership of Taiichi Ohno. In these product
teams, each member was able to carry out all the stages in production. The group
members were supposed to distribute the work in the group themselves and discuss
and agree with each other on the ways to optimize the production process
(Hyodo 1987; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1997; Ernst 1999).
Group work organization was seen above all as communication and dialogue to
improve the group members’ performance. Rotation within the jobs allocated to
the group played a key role in employee training. The rotation plans were compiled
on a daily basis by the supervisor and planned to allow weaker group members
to improve their skills and to make provision for more effective employees to
be kept on standby for when production was disrupted.
This form of work organization has cost cutting (avoidance of waste) and productivity
increase as its foremost goals; employee training is seen as the tool that
will achieve the goals. Training group members is important in planning for and
working with a work force that is as flexible as possible. However, note here that
there are groups of employees (such as short-term workers, new recruits, or employees
from other areas) who are not considered for participation in these job rotation
schemes. It also takes some time before work experience is sufficient to allow
group members to be included in the rotation scheme.
The existing training and problem solving potential of employees deployed in
the context of wide-ranging improvement activities also form a key source of information
for creating adaptable work systems. The structural integration and harnessing
of individual knowledge gained through experience is a comprehensive
program which runs on all levels of the company. For production, these are quality
circles, suggestion schemes and improvement measures at the individual worker
level. All these activities are supported by work groups, teams of experts or individuals.
Just-in-Time
On a concrete level – the flow of parts in the production process – Ohno developed
the well-known just-in-time system, which is represented in the literature in
many different and occasionally contradictory ways. The determining features are
group technology, the kanban system, short set-up times, harmonization of the
production process and quality assurance (Görgens 1994, p. 15).
This astonishingly simple and economically so promising idea was that in each
stage of the process only as many parts are produced as necessary to cover the