Management in all business and human organization activity is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives.

Comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, coordinating, motivating and controlling an organization.

Derived from French word “mesnagement”.

Change started by Meiji restoration in 1880s.

In 1912, Yoichi Ueno introduced Taylorism to Japan & thus started the Japanese style mgmt.

Also referred as “Nihonteki Keiei” in the west.

Main styles are:• Bottom-to-top information flow (Horenso)• Anytime accessibility of managers• People-oriented & work-oriented

Main concepts are:• Lifetime employment• Job rotation• Promotion based seniority• Group consensus• Just in time (JIT)• Quality circles (QC)• Kaizen • Suggestion system• Pareto Charts• Total Quality Control (TQC)

To give a sense of security & identity to workers.

Promises to provide them with cheap housing, health-plans, pensions, education & recreation facilities for their families.

Usually offered to full-time male employees who stay with the company for lifelong period.

To cut no of full-time employees (as in recession), “shoulder-tapping” (katatkaki) or “transferring” (Shukko) is used.

Initially some salary is retained with the company.

Nowadays this technique is discouraged. Subcontracting (part-time workers) is

increasing. Part-timers don’t get social-insurance,

pension, union-rights or paid-holidays. Temporary contract employees (Rinjiko) who

work full-time for limited periods are another pool of non-ordinary workers available to Japanese companies.

Valued as the best means of increasing the motivation of the workers, improving their performance & thus achieving better efficiency & productivity.

During 1st 10 years, employee is expected to learn & acquire expertise in a no of areas in the firm. Then they are rotated to various departments according to their potential.

It also allows knowledge & skill sharing.

It minimizes company’s dependency on a few specialized workers.

It enables companies to create a well-rounded company man who understands the company’s holistic system.

Called “Nenko Joretsu” “Confucianism” which states respect for

elders. Seniority is determined more by age & length

of service than by individual skill. Outstanding individuals are rewarded with

bonuses without compromising the seniority-based wage system.

Nowadays companies are encouraging “ability based mgmt.” Merit ratings are increasingly being used in conjunction with seniority.

One of most important features of Japanese mgmt.

“Rin” means submitting a proposal & requesting a decision and “gi” denotes deliberations & actual decisions.

This system comprises 2 methods:• Nemawashi• Ringi Seido

Nemawashi is the process of preliminary & informal sounding of employees out of employee’s ideas about a proposed course of action/project.

In this, the contacted persons remain anonymous & feel free to talk about their ideas.

“Ringi Seido” is a formal procedure of mgmt. by group consensus. It is a proposal that originates in one section & is forwarded to all relevant sections on the same level, section heads, managers, directors & eventually to company’s president.

Each will make comment on the attached sheet and then accordingly the decision will be taken by the top management.

This results in sounder decisions and also helps in better & effective implementation. It also help boost morals, generate harmony and strengthen loyalty & cohesion among staff.

Employees at lower levels can also generate proposals or work out plans, which are then transferred upward to higher levels.

Sometimes it can be slow, cumbersome process which may delay business decisions.

Developed & perfected by Tai-chi Ohno, Toyota vice-president in early 1970s.

Concept is to supply parts as they are needed to meet consumer’s demands with minimum delays.

It reduces waste and improves product-quality & production-efficiency.

JIT principles & objectives are universal. It offers a competitive advantage by

providing superior service or by developing superior means of production.

It aims for optimal quality/cost relationship. Eliminates unnecessary wastes. JIT is a long-time process which can’t be

implemented in short period of time & nor can rewards be realized over-night. Toyota took 10 years for this.

Main problems are loss of safety stocks because of inaccurate demand forecasts.

Also results in greater amount of stress & pressure on workers to perform.

North-American firms refer to them as ‘employee participation groups’ or ‘focus groups.’

These are small employee-groups doing similar or related work, which meet regularly to identify, analyze and solve product-quality & production problems and to improve general operations.

Also deals with personal training, job enrichment & leadership development.

Participating employees put suggestions into a handy-box and examined by specialists.

Group members select problems through consensus.

QC requires a leader, coordinator, facilitator & other members who function together. Meetings are held at least once a week.

QCs don’t provide quick-fix solutions to all organizational problems.

It is the main key to Japan’s competitive success.

Constitutes the basic philosophical underplanning for the best in management. This philosophy assumes that our way of life deserves to be constantly improved.

Japanese managers devote atleast 50% of their attention to Kaizen.

It is an ongoing process. After it is started, the trend can’t be reversed.

It is generic & can’t be applied to every aspect.

Improvement refers to improvement in standards.

Improvement can be broken in 2 parts:• Kaizen (small improvement)• Innovation (drastic improvement)

It is a customer driven strategy for improvement leading ultimately to customer-satisfaction.

It doesn’t require sophisticated techniques or state-of-art technology. It needs common sense with continuity & commitment.

It was brought to Japan by TWI (Training Within Industries) & US Air-force.

Stresses on morale-boosting benefits of positive employee participation.

Also incorporates incentives for the employees.

This system has a span of 5-10 years & involves 3 stages:• Help workers by suggestions• Employee’s education• Economic impact of suggestions

Workers, under this system, are expected to make daily suggestions.

Toyota suggestion system, e.g., produces a legendary 47.7 suggestions per employee per year & every suggestion receives response within 24 hrs from employee’s direct supervisor. In 1986, Toyota reached an implementation rate of 96% of the suggestions submitted.

Named after “Vilfredo Pareto”. One of the 7 basic tools of QC (Quality

Control). Displays values in descending order as bars

& the cumulative total of each category as a line graph (left to right).

Left vertical axis is frequency of occurrence, cost or other important unit of measure.

Right vertical axis is the cumulative % of total no of occurrences, total cost or total of particular unit of measure.

Pareto Chart Depiction

Based on Pareto principle that when several factors affect a situation, only a few will account for most of the impact. A phenomenon in which 80% of variation observed in everyday processes can be explained by a mere 20% of causes.

Purpose is to highlight the most important among a typically large set of factors.

In QC (Quality Control), it often represents the most common set of defects, highest occurring type of defect, most frequent reasons for customer complaint, and so on.

Also called TQM. Initially developed by Professor William

Deming of NY university, but was not successful in US.

In TQC, quality by inspection, scrapping & reworking are unacceptable.

Corrective measure must be built into the entire productive process.

Japanese believe that “If you take care of quality, the profits will take care of themselves.”

Apart from concepts discussed previously, other main concepts of Japanese management style are:• Brainstorming• Silent Idea Generation Process• Five Whys

Queries

Queries