2ND YEAR

BATCH- 2017-19

MANAGERIAL CONCEPTS &

PRACTICES OF JAPANESE
MANAGEMENT

SUBMITTED BY-
SHUBHAM RAJ
ROLL NO-17021
CONTENTS PAGE NUMBER

INTRODUCTION 2

WHAT CONSTITUTED JAPANESE MANAGEMENT 2

HISTORY OF JAPANESE MANAGEMENT 2-3

STORY OF JAPANESE MANAGEMENT 3

JAPANESE MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS 3

KEY TERMS IN JAPANESE MANAGEMENT 4-8

CONCLUSION 9

REFERENCES 10

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INTRODUCTION

Japan... Nippon... The Land of the Rising Sun....

Japan has consistently maintained its position as one of the world's top economies and
technological innovators, and in recent decades has built up an extensive network of
interconnections with other economic regions and business interests, including Asia, Europe
and the Americas. This experience has helped to build a mature democratic society enjoying
widespread affluence.

Japan's leading companies in fields such as automobiles and electronics originally

introduced management methodology and technology from western sources. Here these
elements were re-combined, molded and refined into locally appropriate models that then
provided inspirational perspectives for business models around the world.

WHAT CONSTITUTED JAPANESE MANAGEMENT?

How this Japanese Management has evolved? What is its relationship with societal
values?
Numerous books and articles have been written on the Japanese management systems.
Abegglen (1958) was one of the first to bring Japanese management to the attention of a
large Western audience, and was followed by Yoshino (1968), Cole (1971) and Dore (1973)
who, through in-depth case descriptions, laid the groundwork for the avalanche of writings
to follow. These classic studies identified and described those crucial differences in
management style and practice that were identified in later studies as critical to Japanese
success.

HISTORY OF JAPANESE MANAGEMENT

 Japan’s culture developed late in Asian terms and was much influenced by China and
later the west.
 Early in Japan’s history, society was controlled by ruling elite of powerful clans.

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 The most powerful emerged as a kingly line and later as the imperial family in
Yamato modern Nara Prefecture or possibly in Kyushu in the third century A.D.
 Japan rebuilt itself based on a new and earnest desire for peaceful development,
becoming an economic superpower in 2nd half of the 20th century.

STORY OF JAPANESE MANAGEMENT

 The culture of Japanese Management is very famous in the west.

 Flagships of the Japanese economy provide their workers with excellent salaries and
working conditions and secure employment.
 One of the prominent features of Japanese Management is the practice of
permanent employment (Shushin Koyo).
 Permanent employment covers the minority of the workforce that work for the
major companies.
 Management Trainees, traditionally nearly all of whom were men, are recruited
directly from colleges when they graduate in the late winter.
 If they survive a six-month probationary period with the company, are expected to
stay with the companies for their working careers.
 Employees are not dismissed thereafter on any grounds, except for specific breaches
of ethics.
 Permanent employees are hired as generalists, not as specialists for specific
positions.

JAPANESE MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

The Japanese economy was totally devastated after the World War II. The country's
turnaround strategy to revive its economy was largely influenced by the Management
Philosophy that emerged in Japan. The strong pillars of Japanese Management are Concern
for Customers to the extent of putting him on the pedestal of God, Control of the Access of
Cost, Quality and Time (Wastage elimination, JIT, TQM, TPM, DOE, Poka Yoke, Kamban,
SMED etc.), Excellence in all areas (5-S, Kaizen, Poka Yoke) and Total Employee Involvement.
Underlying principle embedded in all these is recognition of the need to satisfy all
stakeholders. These Management Principles developed in Japan are gaining wide currency

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all over the world, and practiced by industry, business and governments because of the
enormous power of these concepts that can make any organization highly successful.

KEY TERMS IN JAPANESE MANAGEMENT

A. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT (KAIZEN)
The Japanese refer to continuous improvement as kaizen (pronounced ky'zen). To the
Japanese, kaizen means to strive relentlessly to increase quality, efficiency and effectiveness
in all areas of life including personal, family, social, and work. The kaizen method of
continuous incremental improvements is an originally Japanese management concept for
incremental (gradual, continuous) change (improvement). K. is actually a way of life
philosophy, assuming that every aspect of our life deserves to be constantly improved. The
Kaizen philosophy lies behind many Japanese management concepts such as Total Quality
Control, Quality Control Circles, small group activities, labor relations. Key elements of
Kaizen are quality, effort, involvement of all employees, willingness to change, and
communication.
Japanese companies distinguish between innovation (radical) and Kaizen (continuous). K.
means literally: change (Kai) to become good (zen).

The foundation of the Kaizen method consists of 5 founding elements:

1. teamwork,
2. personal discipline,
3. improved morale,
4. quality circles, and
5. Suggestions for improvement.

Out of this foundation three key factors in K. arise:

- Elimination of waste (Muda) and inefficiency
- the Kaizen 5S framework for good housekeeping
1. Seiri – tidiness
2. Seiton – orderliness
3. Seiso – cleanliness
4. Seikestsu – standardized clean-up

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5. Shitsuke – discipline
- Standardization.

The continuous improvement approach is illustrated by the Shewhart-Deming plan-do-check

or study-action (PDCA or PDSA) cycle.

Some of the statistical tools used in the continuous improvement cycle include: 1. Pareto
diagrams, 2. Fishbone, or cause and effect diagrams, 3. Histograms, 4. Other graphs and
charts, e.g., pie charts, 5. Control charts and 6. Scatter diagrams and related techniques. For
e.g. Regression and Correlation Analysis.

Companies that implement Kaizen strategy:

 Reliance Industries Limited, Patalganga. (Textile, Petroleum)

 Tata Power, All Plants (Electricity Generation and Distribution)
 Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Igatpuri, Nashik, Nagpur. (Farm Equipment)
 Cummins India Ltd, Pune. (Heavy Engineering, Diesel Engines, Generators)
 Electronica Machine Tools Ltd, Pune. (Electronic Machine Tools)
 ABC NISSAN Motor Co. Ltd (Automotive Industry)
 MEPZA, Mauritius (Service Industry, Special Economic Zone)

B. LEAN PRODUCTION/ MANUFACTURING

Lean is about doing more with less: less time, inventory, space, labor, and money. "Lean
manufacturing", shorthand for a commitment to eliminating waste, simplifying procedures
and speeding up production. The idea is to pull inventory through based on customer
demand.

Lean Manufacturing (also known as the Toyota Production System) is, in its most basic form,
the systematic elimination of waste – overproduction, waiting, transportation, inventory,
motion, over-processing, defective units – and the implementation of the concepts of
continuous flow and customer pull. Five areas drive lean manufacturing/production:

 Cost
 Quality

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 Delivery
 Safety, and
 Morale

LEAN PRODUCTION OVERVIEW

 Non-value added activities or waste are eliminated through continuous improvement

efforts
 Focus on continuous improvement of processes - rather than results - of the entire
value chain
 The lean manufacturing mindset: concept, way of thinking - not techniques; culture -
not the latest management tool
 Continuous product flow is achieved through physical rearrangement and system
structure & control mechanisms
 Single-piece flow / small lot production: achieved through equipment set up time
reduction; attention to machine maintenance; and orderly, clean work place
 Pull reduction / Just-in-time inventory control

STRATEGY OF LEAN PRODUCTION

 Lean customer relationships

 Lean product development
 Lean manufacturing/order fulfillment
 Lean supply chain

Companies using Lean Production/ Manufacturing:

 Toyota Production System

 Canon Production System
 IBM
 Epson
 Pentel

C. TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

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TQM, also known as Total Quality Control (TQC), is a management tool for improving total
performance. TQC means organized Kaizen activities involving everyone in a company –
managers and workers – in a totally systemic and integrated effort toward improving
performance at every level. It is to lead to increased customer satisfaction through satisfying
such corporate cross-functional goals as quality, cost, scheduling, manpower development,
and new product development.

According to the Japan Industrial Standards, "implementing quality control effectively

necessitates the cooperation of all people in the company, including top management,
managers, supervisors, and workers in all areas of corporate activities such as market
research and development, product planning, design, preparation for production,
purchasing, vendor management, manufacturing, inspection, sales and after-sale services,
as well as financial control, personnel administration, and training & education. Quality
control carried out in this manner is called company-wide quality control or total quality
control (TQC)."

Quality control in Japan deals with quality of people. It is the fundamental concept of the
Kaizen-style TQC. Building quality into its people brings a company a half-way towards
producing quality products.

SEVEN MAIN FEATURES OF THE TQC MOVEMENT IN JAPAN

1. Company-wide TQC, involving all employees, organization, hardware, and software.

2. Education and Training, emphasis for top management, middle management and
workers.
3. Quality control (QC) circle activities by small groups of volunteers
4. TQC audits
5. Application of statistical methods
6. Constant revision and upgrading of standards
7. Nation-wide TQC promotion

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AREAS TARGETED BY TQM IN JAPAN

 Quality assurance
 New product development
 Education and training
 Organizational/ systems development
 Cross-functional management
 Policy deployment
 Quality deployment
 Supply management
 Meeting production quotas
 Meeting delivery schedules
 Marketing
 Sales

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CONCLUSION
Japan is now at a crossroads between holding fast to the benefits of long-established
structures without changing and be left behind by the rest of the world, or building a society
based on sustainable market principles to achieve growth and development. Since the end
of the Second World War, Japan has experienced the reconstruction era, the period of high
economic growth, and the bubble economy and its collapse, and it is now facing the issue of
structural reform toward a new socioeconomic system.

The major strength of the Japanese approach is the recognition of human creativity. As
Taiichi Ohno, who pioneered the Toyota Production System said:

"Manpower is something that is beyond measurement. Capabilities can be extended

indefinitely when everybody begins to think".

Cost aware and creative employees, just-in-time production, autonomous quality assurance
and an in-built flexibility in the process layout and employee skills, are dominant features of
the Japanese management approach which creates a cost aware and quality conscious
culture across the organization. It has a flexible outlook, encourages improvement and
invests in training multi-skilled employees. Japanese management practitioners are arguably
better equipped and well suited to face the open-ended challenges of rapidly changing
technology and increasing global competition.

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REFERENCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_management_culture

https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Int-Loc/Japanese-Management.html

https://www.worldbusinessculture.com/country-profiles/japan/culture/business-management-
style/

https://www.slideshare.net/francispauljagolino/techniques-of-japanese-management

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