Hayes, R. H. 1981. Why Japanese factories work. Harvard Business Review (July-August): 57- 66.

Summarized by Jose M. Luis
Master of Accountancy Program
University of South Florida, Fall 2000

Japanese Management Main Page | JIT Main Page

Purpose: To answer the question why Japanese manufacturing has become so successful and competitive.

Background:

- 20 years ago, Americans pictured the Japanese factory as a sweat shop making shoddy products.

- Today, Americans imagine gleaming factories peopled by skillful robots – the factory of the future.

- In fact, it is the factory of today, running as it should.

- Achieved excellence by doing simple things, doing them very well, and improving them all the time.

What Hayes saw:

1. Clean, orderly work places

- Workers’ uniforms, machines and floors were clean. Sources of litter & grime carefully controlled.

- Workers were responsible for keeping machines and workplaces clean and in good order.

- "If you clean up the factory floor, you clean up the thought processes of the people on it, too".

2. The "root of all evil" eliminated.

- Suppliers often made three or four deliveries a day.

- Finished goods were removed immediately to a warehouse or shipped to customers.

- Buffer inventories were unnecessary, why?

3. Keeping Murphy out of the plant.

- Preventing machine overload. Japanese use, Americans abuse machines.

- Preventive maintenance, constant cleaning & adjustment, reduced rates of use.

- Comprehensive machine monitoring and early warning systems to check process flow, tolerance, rate of use.

- No-crisis atmosphere. Production schedules set 2 weeks in advance. No expediting, no overloading.

Attitudes and practices of Japanese managers:

1. "Pursuing the last grain of rice in the lunchbox".

- Pursue quality beyond the point of cost effectiveness. Goal: ZERO DEFECTS.

- "A defect is a treasure". Why?

- Quality means: Error-free operation. Problem can be design, inventory, delivery, not just a defective product.

- Quality is not achieved by random decisions but by an all-encompassing management system supported by the top.

2. "Thinking quality in".

- Planning - Careful planning in the design stage with engineers, production, quality assurance, sales, etc.

- Training - Train workers to deliver consistently high-quality products.

- Feedback - Encourage workers & quality inspectors to identify and correct problems. No "we against them".

- Materials – Intensive screening of incoming parts and materials. Pressure on suppliers to improve quality.

- The same conditions which promote defect-free operations also increase productivity.

3. Time consciousness: everlasting customers, lifetime employees, supplier-partners, owners. Codestiny.
    
4. Equipment independence.

- Design and fabricate most production equipment in-house.

- No safety margins and design cushions that manufacturers build into general-purpose machines.

Re-solving the problem of production

• Competition on grounds of reliable, low-cost, defect-free products & dependable delivery hurt U.S. firms.
• The Japanese have never considered the problem solved. Always improving "the factory of the present".
• U.S. managers must: emphasize teamwork, value and train employees, not isolate themselves.

According to Hayes, the key to competing with the Japanese: Putting our best resources and talent to work doing the basic things a little better, every day, over a long period of time. Is he right, or is innovation a better idea?