Japanese Management Technique

Introduction

The Japanese technical and management skills are the reflection of its culture. Japanese management’s one type of strategy is based on the education and training services (Tippu, 2006). It is like the combination of the cultural awareness in an informative-technological way. The Japanese Management was rooted in other historical traditions. Some of the key practices associated with the Japanese Management Techniques are the in-house training of managers, consensual and decentralized decision-making, extensive use of quality control methods, work standards, emphasis on creating harmonious relations among workers, and lifetime employment and seniority-based compensation.

Management Education

The education of managers in Japan traditionally takes place on a relatively informal basis within firms. Many firms viewed that undergraduate education is not a means of attaining business skills, and firms based their hiring decisions less on a recruit’s knowledge than on general attributes such as character and ambition. Firms believe that they do not hire to fill specific occupations but rather, recruits are expected to handle their specific roles within the organization.

The early training of management recruits involves the middle-level and senior managers to serve as teachers and role models, which is often called as the mentor system and is widely used. The emphasis on in-house education is related to the traditional lifetime employment system in which an employee will be hired after the graduation and would stay in the firm until retirement. The lifetime employment system makes it probable that a firm will benefit from its investment in training, and also enables the firm to develop long-range plans for the training recruits.

The management training is based on the broad range of a firm’s operations and the recruits may also begin their careers as ordinary works on a production line. It is part of understanding the details incorporated in the whole management and through time, attain a rich general knowledge of the firm. Japanese managers typically take a more long-term interest in their firms that result of the lifetime employment and seniority systems. This long-term view of the Japanese is based on sources of finance and focused on productivity, growth, and market share, whereas the other foreign firms are concentrated on the profitability.

The decision-making of the Japanese are decentralized unlike the foreign firms. Both middle and senior management serve as directors for which they turn down the idea of incorporating the decision with the board of directors. In this case, Japanese directors typically retain production-line responsibilities which represent another face of a strong production orientation of Japanese management.

Japanese Management Techniques on Toyota

The productivity and continuous improvement of the Toyota makes the company as an effective leader in auto manufacturing and competition. Maybe this is the main reason why does nobody can imitate the production of the Toyota, although many engineers took the years with them and left to serve other companies.

It may appear simple to maximize the flow of production, eliminate waste, and respect the people, but Toyota’s concept requires blood, sweat, and tears for implementation and coordination of the requirements. Toyota’s assembly facilities can be described as having three levels: techniques, systems, and philosophy (Taylor III and Kahn, 1997).

Unlike the other car manufacturers, workers tend to overproduce to reach their quota but on Toyota, overproduction is the worst scene of waste. To work without process is not valued by the customers and it will make the company loss its competence. The company is open for any product innovation but the concentration in making the production more efficient is the basic requirement.

Potential Pitfalls

Indeed, for the global ambitions of Toyota, they make it hard to incorporate by the outsiders for they are Japan-centric Company (Taylor III and Kahn, 1997). To the outsiders, there is so much criticism that evolves in the Japanese Management Techniques and this criticism might contribute in the traditional employment of the Japanese as well as in its success (Kono, 2001). The dictation of different management theory that tries to measure the supremacy and competitiveness of the Japanese ideas is a threat to the management skills and techniques.

Conclusion

One of the big problems that the foreign car manufacturers face is the lack of well-trained local managers, while Toyota’s Japanese plant managers typically have 20 years of experience. With the combination of superior skills in all critical areas in manufacturing, engineering, and marketing, Toyota leads the market throughout the competence. Senior officers took over the years to master the art of car manufacturing and deliver it to the market with so much promise.

Western Companies rely too much on the power of the banks and their shareholders that leads to an unstable business because they depend on the stock market, investment and currency. While Japanese are very serious in their internal labor market, even though a company experienced recession they will still survive in the competition with an organizational slack.

References:

Kono, T., 2001. Trends in Japanese Management: Continuing Strengths, Current Problems, and Changing Priorities. Palgrave, New York, pp. 284.

Taylor III, A., & Kahn J., 1997. How Toyota Defies Gravity Its Secret is its Legendary Production System Though Competitors Have Been Trying it for Years, Nobody Makes it Work as well as Toyota. [Online] Available at: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/12/08/234926/index.htm. [Accessed 03 Nov 2009].

Tippu, S., 2006. Time to Learn Japanese Management Techniques. [Online] Available at: http://www.nihongobashi.com/about_us/announcements/iTWire.pdf. [Accessed 03 Nov 2009].

Other Source:

Profile of Traditional Japanese Management Practices. [Online] Available at: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Int-Jun/Japanese-Management-Techniques.html. [Accessed 03 Nov 2009].