Skills and Control in the Toyota Production System: The Case of Toyota Motor Thailand (TMT)

Thunyalak Weerasombat and Ian Hampson*

Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand

Australian School of Business,University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Prepared for the International Labour Process Conference, 27-29 March, 2012, Stockholm

Abstract

The debate around the skills requirements of the TPS has lacked nuance due to its use of conventional blunt dichotomous ‘high’ vs ‘low’ terminology. Those who argue the TPS requires ‘high’ skills point to the way workers handle many work processes, and engage in kaizen (or ‘continuous improvement’), using analytical and problem-solving skills. An opposite view points to the short-cycle work and fragmented tasks characteristic of the TPS, suggesting this represents mere multi-tasking – not multi-skilling. Further complicating matters, as has been noted in labour process theory, the definition of ‘skills’ has expanded to include characteristics employers find desirable such as right ‘attitudes’. This paper reports on research that has identified how such loosely defined ‘skills of compliance’ play a specific role in TMT’s performance management system. The paper also draws – hesitantly – on developments in the debate over service sector skills to facilitate understanding of the skills in this lean complex manufacturing environment. The inchoate concept of ‘skills’ includes not only ‘technical skills’ and ‘skills of compliance’ but also less easily specified skills of ‘coordination’ and ‘work process awareness’. The empirical research the paper reports consists of interviews with key management figures and union representatives, as well as plant visits to the three Toyota assembly plants in Bangkok, Thailand.

Keywords: Toyota Production System (TPS); the Toyota Way; Toyota Motor Thailand (TMT); work process skills; coordination; competency; compliance; Competency Appraisal (CA)

* Contact Author: I.Hampson@unsw.edu.au

1

Skills and Control in the Toyota Production System (TPS): The Case of Toyota Motor Thailand (TMT)

Introduction The existing literature regarding the skill demands of the TPS has polarised between those who think the TPS requires ‘high’ skills, and those who think it requires ‘low’ skills. The former point to the way workers handle many work processes, deploying analytical and problem solving skills, in quest of Kaizen.1 Therefore, it is argued, it is difficult to implement the TPS in host countries whose workforces lack these skills.2 In contrast, another view argues that the TPS requires only ‘low’ skills due to the short-cycle time and fragmented tasks, which are characteristic of that form of work, and which represent a mere multi-tasking – not multi-skilling.3 Further, some argue that a highly skilled workforce may actually impede the implementation of the TPS.4

To these questions, this paper applies insights from recent labour process and other inquiries into the nature of ‘skill’ in the service sector. These have found that the concept of ‘skill’ has expanded to include what were formerly known as employee attributes – like motivation and compliance.5 This is a fundamental shift – formerly skilled workers could use skill (qua ‘learned capabilities’) to resist management control – now the very definition of a skilled worker includes worker compliance. Moreover, this ‘expanded’ notion of skill resonates with the meaning of ‘skill’ in the Thai language, where the word ‘tak-sa’, or ‘skills’ for industry, also includes such workers’ characteristics as discipline, punctuality, work involvement, ‘good’ attitudes and willingness to participate in hard work.6 The paper documents how notions of skill based in ‘technical competence’ sit side by side with compliance-based notions of ‘skill’ in TMT’s performance management system. The paper also hesitantly utilises theoretical material recently applied in understanding service sector skill to further illuminate the nature of the skills demanded by the TPS. The theories of articulation work7 and work process knowledge8, have been utilised in the service sector to understand how unrecognised skills of awareness, coordination and interaction are part of many service sector work processes.9 The paper suggests that these theories may have purchase in understanding skills in the TPS.

The paper points out that TMT’s strategic HRM has plugged a skills gap resulting from the underdeveloped Thai skill formation system by providing intense training upon entry and at all stages linked to long work tenure and intertwined with a ‘bundle’ of interrelated HRM practices. TMT also exerts control over workers through the definitional flexibility of ‘skill’ and the practice of performance management, called ‘Competency Appraisal’, which defines the ‘right’ characteristics of Toyota’s people as competencies required for advancement in the firm.

The findings of this paper are based on reviews of the academic literature and company documents on the issue of skills, and qualitative individual and group interviews conducted at TMT during June to December 2008. The participants include TMT executives, production managers, HRM/HRD managers, HRM/HRD staff, and frontline workers (including team members, team leaders, and group leaders). Each interview lasted, on average, about 1-3 hours while each observation took about 2 hours.

The paper proceeds as follows. The first section examines the debate over the skills needs of the TPS, charting a disagreement between advocates of ‘low’ vs ‘high’ skills. It also charts a similar disagreement over the significance of this for public policy, as some writers argue that, not only does the TPS not require ‘high’ skills but, that a ‘high skill’ public skill formation system can actually impede the implementation of the TPS. The second section examines skills policy

2

towards the automotive sector in Thailand, establishing its weaknesses. However, due to intense training at TMT, this national skill formation deficiency does not impede the implementation of the TPS – although we return to this point after examining the theoretical issues of labour control and skill in the next section (four) – where we also point to theoretical resources from the debate over service sector skill which may shed light on the nature of skills in the TPS and at TMT. The fifth section exposes how the performance management system uses diverse notions of skill and competence as performance criteria, in an attempt to shape employee attitudes towards the ‘Toyota Way’.

2. The Skills Demand of the TPS: ‘High’ or ‘Low’?

Scholars, activists, and policymakers have long debated whether the TPS requires ‘high’ or ‘low’ skills. The former argument was firstly popularised by Womack et al. Though not spelling out the exact skills required by the TPS, they claim that work under the TPS is challenging to workers, and requires ‘high’ individual skills.10 Some writers argue in the same vein that requirements for problem-solving and participation (i.e. in developing standardised work through kaizen) force workers to have more skills than those in a typical assembly line.11

According to Toyota, the TPS requires ‘multi-skilling’ because workers have to rotate jobs and undertake various responsibilities. 12 An individual worker may be required to operate and master different kinds of machines, to be responsible for the quality of his own work, as well as to cooperate with his team leader to fix unpredictable production problems.13 Further, the flexible use of the workforce (shojinka) makes ‘multi-skilling’ even more important. Shojinka means the ability to quickly alter the number of workers to absorb changes in market demand, and to allocate workers to multiple tasks.14

But is this best described as ‘multi-skilling’, as claimed by Toyota, or is it more akin to ‘multi-tasking’? 15 As a result of the short cycle time, fragmented jobs, and standardised work, workers are responsible for a relatively large number of small tasks, subjected to work repetitiveness and low autonomy, as they have to strictly follow work instructions. Moreover, according to some researchers, workers have limited chances to participate in problem-solving.16 On this view, the skills the TPS requires should be characterised as ‘low’. A further complication, and an important one, is that performing a large number of tasks at speed might entail a separate skill, or set of skills, from the skills required to perform each of the tasks in isolation. In other words, the skills of coordinating and integrating the large number of tasks might be different to those of the individual tasks – and significant. Such is argued by articulation work and work process knowledge theory, to which we will presently turn.

According to the literature summarized here, the TPS requires ‘broad-based skill’, ‘analytical skill', ‘decision-making skill’, ‘problem-solving skill’, ‘trouble shooting skill’, ‘interpersonal skill’ (teamwork), and ‘work involvement’. The literature’s lack of precision in its skill descriptors is noticed here, but bracketed for the sake of explicating the literature. ‘Broad-based skill’ is seen as crucial to heijunka – or ‘levelled production’. Varying production mixes require workers with broad-based skill to deal with different machinery and equipment for each type of cars. 17 Broad-based skill is even more important to adjust worker numbers and work pace to properly respond to market demand. On this view, when each worker has to cope with a wider range of tasks, they need a broader range of skills.18

‘Analytical skill’, refers to the ability to identify the causes of production problems and breakdowns, resulting from the pursuit of kaizen.19 Fixing them relies on ‘decision-making skill’

3

and ‘problem-solving skill’.20 Buffer minimisation and low inventory increases interdependence among linked stages in the production process, thus it is important that workers quickly fix problem to keep the line flowing.21 A number of studies have already pointed out that the TPS fosters workers’ participation in problem solving.22 Such studies often also indicate the significance of ‘trouble-shooting skill’ in that the TPS requires workers to analyse and fix mechanical and electronic problems.23 ‘Interpersonal skill’ in general and teamwork in particular is also crucial, because work under the TPS is structured in teams in both the production line and QC activities.24 As buffer minimisation makes team members highly interdependent, JIT needs good teamwork whereby each team member cooperates and interacts well with others.25 Workers are also expected to replace others in cases of absence or team modification; thereby requiring each worker to work interchangeably with other team members.26

‘Work involvement’ is also sometimes seen as an essential ‘skill’. A numbers of studies link it to kaizen.27 Under the TPS, workers are encouraged to make suggestions to improve production quality and work processes. It is thus said to be crucial for workers to have attitudes of commitment, willingness, and motivation to sustain work effort. Yet while kaizen activity might well depend on motivation, initiative, participation – in short, on involvement – whether these undoubtedly important factors are ‘skills’ or not is more than simply a matter of definition, and has important implications for labour control which the article will discuss at greater length below.

2. The Thai Skill Formation System and Skills Development at TMTThe skill formation system in Thailand apparently fails to provide a workforce sufficiently skilled for the needs of automobile industry recruitment. According to the ‘TPS demands high skills’ thesis, this would impede the implementation of the TPS – unless firm level training can fill the gap. This is precisely what is found at TMT – a wide range of training, and in particular ‘on the job’ learning is provided. This has certain interesting features, as it is not only an exercise in developing ‘technical skills’ for automobile assembly under ‘lean’ conditions, but it may also help develop certain necessary skills of coordination, awareness and interaction.

National Economic and Social Development (NESD) plans have guided the Thai skill formation system. Early NESD plans tended to focus on labour-intensive industries, providing a large pool of low-waged labour to attract investment. In this way HRD had been mostly ignored.28 The government’s training efforts had also mostly been oriented towards enabling the unemployed to get a job. It was only from the 8th NESD Plan (1997-2001) that the Thai government began to take HRD more seriously.29 Yet, the government’s HRD schemes remain unable to provide sufficient skills to the automobile industry. Importantly, Thailand’s qualification structure is underdeveloped, making it difficult for trainers and recruiters alike. Thus it lacks both direction in the skill formation system and linkages between industrial plans and HRD.30

Turning to quality, there is a mismatch between the supply of skills and industrial demand. Vocational education provides skills that are too general and not specific enough to serve the needs of particular industries. The vocational education for those who enter the automobile industry is oriented more toward maintenance rather than assembly work.31 There is also a mismatch between industrial demand and curriculum – the latter tends to focus on outdated technology.32 Accordingly, vocational graduates often need to be retrained before taking real work.33 Accordingly, manufacturers may prefer to use internal training to save time and money, which would also enable firms to retain knowledge and expertise within the company rather than having to pay an external source for it.34

4

Importantly, the Thai educational system, unlike its Japanese counterpart, is apparently unable to shape the characteristics and attitudes desired for industrial work, such as endurance, cooperation, participation, and teamwork. Referring to the core curriculum for fundamental education (covering primary, junior high, and high schools) recently enacted in 2008, the most related characteristics for industrial working are self-learning, adaptation to change, human relations, conflict avoidance and resolution.35 Yet, it is still far from sufficient in preparing industrial characteristics such as discipline, hard working, and teamwork. While many of these characteristics may not be ‘skills’ properly so called, they may be essential worker attributes for life under the TPS and indeed, they figure prominently in the performance management system in use in TMT.

As Thailand does not have a qualification system for this particular industry, the finding of insufficiency of skills reported here is based on a survey of employers’ skills demand in the automobile sector.36 According to this survey, the employers define ‘qualifications’ for automobile work in three areas: ‘work ethics’ (or necessary aspects of character for industrial work), ‘knowledge’, and ‘core operational skills for automobile tasks’. ‘Work ethics’ includes responsibility, discipline, endurance for hard work, self-development, and compliance with firms’ requirements. ‘Knowledge’ covers language as well as science and technology, which are both important to if workers are to understand and be able to use equipment and machines. ‘Core operational skills’ for automobile tasks include the abilities to do pressing, forging, casting, plastic injection, and machining. Among these three groups of qualifications, the employers rank ‘work ethics’ as the first priority, since the automobile industry requires hard work and high adaptability. They also emphasise that the government should pay more attention to preparing these qualifications for Thai workers before entering the job market.

The same survey also reports employers’ satisfaction levels with the ‘skills and knowledge’ of workers and ‘supervisors’ who currently work in the automobile industry.37 The survey provided a list of ‘skills and knowledge’ and asked participating employers to rate their satisfaction. In terms of skills, ‘procedure understandability’ employers register the most satisfaction (level 4), following by ‘problem-solving’, ‘manufacturing-process implementation’ (both level 3), meanwhile ‘industrial mind/habit’, ‘machine and equipment usage’, and ‘tooling’ are at level 2. In terms of knowledge, ‘safety’ and ‘measurement’ ranked as level 3; meanwhile the rest four areas got level 2.

The point about lacking skills in ‘industrial mind/habit’ is important, since this would normally be thought of as an attribute of character, rather than a skill properly so called. The Thai language itself also contributes to this problem. In the Thai language, ‘tak-sa’ is the closest meaning to the English ‘skills’. However, ‘tak-sa’ for industry also includes workers’ characteristics, such as discipline, punctuality, work involvement, and good attitudes and willingness to participate in hard-work. The fact that industrial mind/habit is listed as a ‘skill’ is an instance of how the concept of ‘skill’ can include attributes of character, and we will go on to argue that this aids employer control.

3. Theorizing Skills and ControlTo take up the point flagged in the previous section, it is questionable whether ‘industrial mind/habit’, ‘work ethics’ or ‘work involvement’ should be classified as ‘skills’ (i.e. a ‘learned capability’) rather than an ‘attitude’ to work. The term ‘skill’ is problematic, as it tends to conflate ‘technical’ skills and ‘real’ abilities with other ‘attributes’ i.e. workers’ attitudes and motivation. ‘Skill’ qua real learned capabilities, is also a problem for management control because, on the one hand, skilled workers are usually more productive but on the other, workers’ possession of that

5

‘skill’ makes them potentially able to resist and subvert management’s efforts at control and work intensification.38 Hence, early LPT highlighted management’s attempts to control labour by removing ‘deskilling’ – as in the classic formulations of Taylorism, separating conception from execution through ‘scientific management’.

Labour Process theorists have developed extensive typologies of control, so we do not need to trace them here. One key issue is one of how to position the concept of motivation and attitude, or ‘engagement’ alongside – but not ‘within’ – the concept of skill? Thompson has argued that the problem of management has become one of simultaneously controlling and engaging the workforce, in a context where increases in control threaten workers’ motivation, or their ‘engagement’ – and increased ‘engagement’, or worker involvement in decisions, may compromise managerial control. 39 One of the strong claims in the critical lean production literature is that work under the TPS relies on high levels of worker engagement as well as high skill and control. Equally strong is the claim of Dohse et al that Japanese production methods have resolved the problem of encouraging workers to place their knowledge of the production process at the service of management, thereby aiding in the intensification of their own work.40

As is by now well noted, the concept of ‘skills’ expanded through the 1990s, in a way consistent with increasing management control. As researchers focused their attention on service sector work, they noticed how ‘skill’ increasingly entailed ‘a spectrum of knowledge, capabilities, traits, and attributes – including discipline, and conformity to norms of physical appearance’.41 Brown et al argued, in the case of Japan, that ‘high skills’ include not only specialist technical expertise and high levels of general education, but also values and attitudes, which are compatible with long working hours and low levels of individual autonomy.42 The research of Gordon Lafer documented how employers defined discipline, cooperation, and compliance (and even freedom from substance abuse!) as ‘skills’.43

This expansion comes at some cost in terms of the concept’s coherence, but this very vagueness can serve employer control.44 Particularly damaging for employee power is building ‘motivation’ or ‘attitude’ into definitions of ‘skill’ that play a role in performance management – precisely that which occurs at TMT, as we will see in the following sections. For example, Mayo defines ‘capability’ as that which ‘a person brings that enables them to achieve both their goals and the goals of the organisation’, including not only skills, qualifications and experience, but also attitudes and values.45 Similarly, widely received definitions of ‘competence’ include within ‘competence’ motivation and sets of attitudes that contribute to effective work performance, as in the definitions of Boyatzis46 and McClelland.47 Thus as Hampson & Junor argue:

But, if ‘competence’ is what provides the conditions for superior workplace performance, and ‘competence’ is composed of attributes including motivation, then a person who lacks motivation to perform as management desires can be defined as not simply uncooperative, but as incompetent. The statement ‘I am competent to do x, but I lack the motivation to do so’ is contradictory, because competence entails motivation. Resistance is redefined as incompetence. 48

Hampson and Junor 49 have argued that many skills deployed in the service sector are ‘invisible’ skills of awareness, interaction, coordination, and integration – but not compliance.50 Following Brown et al, skill is the expertise, ability or competence to undertake specific activities acquired through formal instruction or work experience.51 That is, skill is a product of learning, and not an

6

aspect of a person’s character. In the debate over service sector skill, the theories of ‘articulation work’ and ‘work process knowledge’, have illuminated various service occupations.52 This may have implications for understanding the skills involved in the TPS.

‘Articulation work’ as a theoretical approach to the skills required for the TPS could be illuminating. ‘Articulation work’ – the linking together of unrelated tasks into ‘lines’ of work in a smooth flow – is often overlooked.53 TPS work involves knitting together a large number of unrelated tasks, and managing interruptions caused by kaizen actitivities. Articulation work entails ‘coordination’ or as Strauss explains, the ‘meshing’ of numerous tasks, clusters of tasks and segments of the total ‘arc’ (or trajectory) of work, the efforts of various workers and the unit in which they organized.54 Articulation work integrates previously unrelated work and tasks.55 Strauss thus named it a ‘supra’ type of work – a ‘very complicated interweaving of several modes of work’.56 It depends on a ‘second order’ ‘articulation work skill’ – the skills of coordinating lower levels of skill, and unrelated tasks into lines of work. It is quite likely that this sort of work and skill is not well registered in discussions of skill in the TPS. It is of a kind with work process knowledge theory. ‘Work process knowledge’ involves ‘awareness of the interdependencies of the activities in the work system as a whole such as the flow of work through the organisation’. 57 Boreham characterises ‘work process knowledge’ as requiring:

‘awareness of the interdependencies of the activities in different departments, including characteristics of the system as a whole, such as the flow of work through the organisation, both upstream and downstream of the workers’ own station and participation in a workplace culture …58

It is not necessary to fully explicate these theories – their presence here is merely suggestive of further lines of inquiry, and to hint that there may well be unrecognised skills in complex manufacturing.

4. Skills for the TPS at TMT: ‘High’, ‘Low’ and / or ‘Work Process Skills’?

This section establishes that TMT does indeed use confused and contradictory notions of skill and these do aid management control. However, as also established earlier, these concepts of skill, which combine ability with motivation at the cost of incoherence, are to some extent embedded in the language – and not only Thai. As noted in section 2, they also appear in Thai skills formation policy. As also discussed, the existing debate around skills utilizes a ‘high-low’ dichotomy, which is at best not nuanced, at worst uninformative. The research on which this article is based examined seven sets of skills listed in the ‘high skills’ literature (elaborated earlier), including ‘work involvement’ (noting that the latter is a ‘carpet sweeper’ term, and properly not a skill at all), and sought the impressions of interviewees at TMT on whether they were required for the TPS or not.

The first finding is that not all of the ‘high’ skills are expected to be deployed by workers at all levels in any ‘actually existing’ TPS – a point which sometimes eludes protagonists in the international literature. At TMT, the first five out of seven skills depend on what position the worker is currently occupying. At the level of TM, workers are not directly expected to exercise ‘analytical’, ‘decision-making’, ‘problem-solving’, and ‘trouble-shooting’ skills. According to production managers:

These skills are not expected from TMs, because they are not required to fix production problems. Whenever defects or production problems occur, they only report the problem by

7

pulling the ‘andon’ cord’ and TL or GL will come to fix the problem. However, this does not mean such skills are totally irrelevant to TMs, as they are subject to future career development and kaizen. On the one hand, TMs have to accumulate these skills so as to be promoted to the TL position, which requires them to deal directly with production problems. On the other hand, they also need these skills to participate in kaizen and idea suggestions.59

TMs are expected to conform with standardised work, thus their most important skills are ‘broad-based skills’, as work is fragmented and each TM needs to perform a number of tasks.60 However, on this point, production managers admitted that the capacity to perform a large number of low skilled jobs may not sum to ‘high skill’.61 [As suggested above, however, this may neglect the skills of coordination or articulation, necessary for multitasking.] Similarly, because TMT extensively practices heijunka where a wide range of passenger cars and pick-ups are mixed, workers are required to perform a large number of jobs. Production managers here argued that TMs need ‘multi-skilling’, not a simple ‘multi-tasking’. The skills of teamwork, as well as coordination, are also required to carry on the work process where inventory and buffers are very limited under JIT.62 So, as mentioned above, while a large number of standardised tasks may impose few skills requirements in themselves, when they have to be performed under time pressure, and in coordination with others, fresh skill requirements of coordination, interaction and awareness may arise. These skills may be loosely registered through such terms as ‘participation’ or ‘initiative’, or ‘involvement’.

‘Analytical’, ‘decision-making’, ‘problem-solving’, and ‘trouble-shooting skills’ are extremely important when workers are appointed at the position of TL and GL, as they have to cope with production problems.63 In the TPS production line, TL/GL are assigned for ‘genchi genbutsu’ (go-and-see management), which requires them to monitor and fix problems whenever they are reported by TMs or when the ‘andon cord’ is pulled.64 TL and GL also need the same ‘broad based skills’ as TMs, since they have to monitor and may have to replace TMs in case of absence.

For the remaining two of our ‘high’ skills, ‘interpersonal skill’ and ‘work involvement’, production managers explained that these are indispensable for both TM and TL/GL.65 Interpersonal skills, particularly of ‘teamwork’, are crucial because production workers at all levels are required to work interchangeably.66 Many scholars cite as important the ability to cooperate, participate and generate kaizen suggestions67 which may be termed ‘work involvement’ – which TMT takes as a key requirement of the TPS.68

But it is stretching the conventional definition of ‘skill’ to define ‘work involvement’ as ‘skill’. First, ‘work involvement’ refers to a set of activities – the capacity for work involvement may be a more accurate rendition of what is meant. Second, and more importantly, ‘the capacity for work involvement’ is comprised of a number of components, including, for example, knowledge of the production process, skills at performing related tasks, and, importantly, the inclination or motivation to be involved. This is not an exhaustive list, but, and third, TMT defines ‘work involvement’ to include both willingness and compliance to any request in the work system, and the terminology of correct ‘attitudes’ is deployed. Table 1 below shows all skill requirements for the TPS in accordance with the position/level of workers, based on interviews with TMT.

8

Table 1: List of Required Skills (and Characteristics) by Levels of WorkersSkills needed for the TPS Levels of workers

Team Member (TM)Team Leader (TL)

andGroup Leader (GL)

1) Broad-based skill 2) Analytical skill 3) Decision-making skill 4) Problem-solving skill 5) Trouble-shooting skill 6) Interpersonal skill (teamwork) 7) Work involvement (coordination, participation, and compliance)

8) Creativity skills or Initiative Remarks: = Needed skills for current position = To be accumulated for future position

Source: Interviews with Production Managers

Apart from the set of seven skills, TMT has defined ‘creativity’ (or initiative) as another necessary skill that workers at all levels should have, so as to generate ideas for kaizen.69 Once again ‘creativity’, however desirable it may be as an attribute of employees, is probably not a skill properly so-called. This shows once again that TMT management does not draw a clear distinction between ‘skills’ as learned capabilities, and ‘skills’ as including desirable attitudes, and even behaviours. Two points emerge. First, the skill specifications of TMs include ‘work involvement’, which may be a ‘carpet sweeper’ term for a range of ‘substantial’ (if ‘invisible’) skills, such as the capacity for awareness, interaction, and coordination, as well as a ‘trojan horse’ for ‘compliance’. TMT executives also shed light on this point:

At TMT, we do not strictly define the TPS skills. Rather, we term it broadly as any skills and other characteristics that make the TPS possible. We want our people not to have just multi-skills but also good attitudes and behavior, particularly the compliance to ensure their conformity to the TPS requirements.70

This is in line with Mayo’s perspective, identified earlier as incoherent, that ‘capability’ is that which enables a person to achieve both individual and organisational goals – including ability, motivation and attitude.71

Second, and more importantly, the skill requirements for ‘broad based skill’ – the capacity to undertake a large number of unrelated, fragmented tasks in a paced flow of work – may be understated, and indeed seem to involve under-recognized skills of awareness, interaction and coordination. These skills are also evident for points 7 & 8. As to the latter, the capacity to creatively initiate kaizen processes seems to be a high level one. In short, there appears to be a disjunction between the formal and informal skill requirements, such that although TMs occupy low levels, they are in fact required to undertake tasks that require certain sorts of skills that, although important, are not recognised as high level skills.

9

5. Competence, Compliance and Control at TMT

As discussed earlier, the problem of management is to at once control and engage the workforce. 72 One interesting aspect around ‘lean’ versions of the TPS is how it seemed to demand high skills and engagement, yet in a context of a high control. Toyotism seemed to have solved the classic problem of management: how to encourage work engagement and to force workers to put their knowledge and skills at the service of corporate rationalisation.73 In their discussion of the capacities necessary for the TPS to work, Dohse et al include work engagement represented through work effort, cooperativeness, conscientiousness, and innovativeness. 74 At TMT, all of these are used as promotion criteria, and workers have to show their work engagement to advance in the internal labour market.

Performance evaluation measures how well workers conform to the values and attitudes laid out in the ‘Toyota Way’, and this process deploys the ‘expanded’ and ‘degraded’ notion of skill that defines ‘compliance’ as ‘competence’. TMT applies the Competency Appraisal (CA) to evaluate workers’ attitudes and behavior using the ‘Toyota Way’ as its metric. The Toyota Way was introduced by Toyota Japan in 2001 to mould workers’ attitudes and behavior. According to Toyota President Fujio Cho:

[T]he Toyota Way is a guideline that all employees should embrace. It represents Toyota’s managerial conviction and a value system designed to make Toyota’s people all over the world fully aware of the TPS and always type themselves toward it.75

According to Toyota Japan, all subsidiaries have to ensure that their workers understand and practice the TPS by subscribing to the corporate values of the Toyota Way. Though given some flexibility and freedom, each subsidiary must develop a system to measure workers’ attitudes and characteristics are in line with the Toyota Way.76

TMT has responded to this policy by the development of the CA system, which has been implemented since 2004. TMT uses CA as a means to measure to what extent TMT workers have the right attitudes and characteristics. Employees, to compensate for the way the company provides opportunities for personal growth and good quality of work-life, are expected to pay Toyota back with ultimate conformity to the TPS. Toyota Japan allows freedom in designing the system, and TMT has unpacked and interpreted the concept of Toyota Way.

The Toyota Way contains two principles—‘continuous improvement’ and ‘respect for people’.77 The former principle contains 3 sub-principles – ‘challenge’, ‘kaizen’, and ‘genchi genbutsu’ (go-and-see management). Meanwhile, the latter principle contains another 2 sub-principles – ‘respect’ and ‘teamwork’. Toyota desires that their people think ahead and challenge themselves by continuous improvement through offering higher quality products. In regard to ‘kaizen’, they desire that workers should ceaselessly quest for operational improvements through innovation and evolution. ‘Genchi genbutsu’ (go-and-see management) urges Toyota’s people to solve production problems by going and seeing the actual site and real situation to thoroughly understand the problem and then make a decision to resolve the problems together with other people, according to the ‘Toyota Way’.

‘Respect for people’ entails 2 sub-principles – ‘respect’ and ‘teamwork’. Toyota claims to be concerned with all stakeholders including customers, stockholders, employees, business partners (e.g. suppliers) as well as the host societies. that comprises of the two pillars, ‘continuous

10

improvement’ and ‘respect for people’, into the set of ‘TMT Employees’ Competency’. In its own definition, the set of ‘TMT Employees’ Competency’ is further divided into two groups: ‘challenge and change’ and ‘commitment’. These two groups feature another 12 competencies that include desirable attitudes and characteristics that a worker should possess to conform to the TPS demands. As explained by HRM managers:

At TMT, we do not value only workers’ certain capabilities to perform the assigned tasks, but also give importance to the positive attitudes and characteristics to conform to the TPS. However, we do not term them as ‘skill’ but as ‘competency’. Our workers are expected to possess and activate all these competencies into their work.78

To the untutored, ‘skill and ‘competency’ might be synonymous, yet a sharp distinction at this point is being drawn between ‘skills’ (as ‘learned capabilities to perform the assigned tasks) and ‘competencies’ or ‘desirable attitudes and characteristics’. The first group of ‘competencies’ – ‘challenge and change’ – consists of 6 ‘sub’-competencies, namely problem solving, decision-making, global perspective, innovative thinking, policy management, and strategic leadership. Meanwhile, the second group, ‘commitment’ includes another 6 competencies, namely achievement-orientation, customer focus, cost and quality consciousness, people development and coaching, mutual trust and communication, and integrity. Each competency is capable of assessment at four levels, although level 0 indicates zero (or near zero) competence, level one is minimal competence, and level three is maximum competence.

The CA results are applied as a criterion for promotion. CA purports to measure workers’ attitudes and behavior, and these are opened up to the interpretation and judgement of the front line supervisor. The CA process requires workers to do self appraisal, evaluate, and rank themselves on the 12 competencies (in the level of 0-3, (0 = unacceptable and improvement needed, 1 = acceptable, 2 = effective, and 3 = outstanding).79 Then, workers discuss the self-appraisal with their immediate superiors.80 Thus they have to show their closest superior how they have right attitudes and characteristics on work.

To give some examples, first, in CA, the kaizen ‘competency’ does not mean to measure the ability to propose kaizen but to gauge the presence of the ‘right’ attitudes to kaizen. A worker who shows efforts in suggesting kaizen without encouragement or force from superiors is assessed as having a ‘high’ level of competency. Meanwhile, a ‘low’ level of competency is assigned to a worker who has low motivation to join kaizen discussions or make suggestions. In the CA matrix the highest level of policy management (competency seven) is ‘understand all policies of the company and be able to implement them in their work’. The highest level of competency twelve, ‘integrity’, is ‘strictly follow the company rules and regulations’, and always put in high effort to ‘become a role model for ethical attitudes’. Similarly, the highest level of competency seven, ‘achievement orientation’, is ‘implement only right/proper process/means to achieve goals’. Compliance, defined as consistent with competency, is the way to promotion.

Many ‘Toyota Way’ competencies deal much with ‘attitudes’, not the direct ability to perform the job. The extent of control at TMT, to some extent, helps illuminate how ‘control’ can remain intact when workers have both high ‘skills’ and high ‘engagement’. This is possible because of the definitional flexibility on ‘skills’ that includes other attributes, particularly ‘engagement’, which are defined by management. Findings from TMT suggest that the Toyota Way can be considered as a technology of control, not only specifying required characteristics for the TPS but also urging work engagement.

11

6. Training and Learning at TMT

Section two identified weaknesses in the Thai skill formation system. If the TPS required ‘high’ skills, and its implementation depended on a ready external supply of skilled labour, then the TPS could be in trouble. However, TMT ‘compensates’ for the ‘weak’ external skill formation system with its own HRD and learning practices. This section describes them, noting in passing some resemblance to those that would support conceptions of learning based in ‘work process knowledge’ or ‘articulation work’ theory. The section also describes how TMT’s workers learn through their work participation and contribute their learning to the firm through the kaizen process. This point shows how the TMT case supports Adler & Cole’s account of the significance of ‘learning by participation’ in the TPS where workers learn from their participation and then contribute to the organisation through tendering kaizen suggestions.81

At TMT, right after their recruitment, all newcomers are subjected to entry-level skill adjustment training, which is called ‘Fundamental Skill Training (FST)’, and which takes five weeks. FST is aimed to ensure that all newcomers have sufficient skills to efficiently work in accordance with standardised work straightaway upon training completion.82 This is achieved through ‘learning by doing’. As a trainer explained:

Learning by doing is the main concept implemented for FST because it is the best and fastest way to make sure that the newcomers can do what they have been trained in. In doing so, FST starts train newcomers with off-line OJT and then continually applies OJT. 83

Under FST, newcomers will spend their first week being trained at the ‘Asia Pacific Global Production Center’ (AP-GPC), where real work situations are simulated to accelerate ‘learning by doing’ and newcomers learn from practicing as if they were working in the real work conditions. On Day 1, all newcomers learn the TPS concept, safety, and TMT’s common rules/regulations (such as wearing uniform, punctuality, and Kaizen participation). During Day 2-4, newcomers are divided into groups of 15-20 persons to be trained separately by off-line OJT, which is a simulation unit modeled from the real particular shop where they will go to work. To put off-line OJT into practice, a group of 15-20 newcomers is further divided into a small team of 4-5 persons responsible by one trainer. The objective of using off-line OJT is to adjust/develop fundamental skills of newcomers to understand the ‘elements of work’ so that they are able to comply with standardised work as quickly as possible on the simulated worksite.84 In this regard, TMT also developed a special training tool to support off-line OJT applied during Day 2-4 called ‘Visual Manual (VM)’. VM features video clips of step-by-step standardised work of each job and then newcomers will do role-plays with the real equipment and machines following what they saw on VM.

On Day 5, newcomers are individually evaluated to make sure that they can practice standardised work at their particular shop. Those who passed the evaluation will be sent to the actual worksite and will be trained through OJT there for another 2-3 weeks. OJT gives newcomers an opportunity to experiment with what they have learnt from the simulated work setting through off-line OJT, but this time in the real work setting supervised by real supervisors. And after the completion of 2-3 weeks of OJT, newcomers are subject to evaluation by their trainers (TL/GL) in Week 4. Feedback is then sent to the AP-GPC. If anyone fails, they will be sent back to the AP-GPC to repeat the training for another week.

OJT and off-line OJT are used so newcomers quickly become familiar with and comply with standardised work by practicing what they are trained. Morishima as well as others have pointed

12

out that Japanese firms make great use of OJT and off-line OJT to promote ‘learning by doing’, which is a learning method superior to classroom training, since workers learn how to do their jobs in the real or simulated work settings.85 The VM applied in off-line OJT at TMT is a good example of transforming classroom training into practice. VM demonstrates how each job is done correctly step by step. Then, the trainees practice on their own with the real equipment and machines following what they saw from VM, thus accelerating ‘learning by doing’. In this way, workers learn though their practicing, not just by studying in the classroom. ‘Learning by doing’ through OJT remains intensively and continually applied in training systems for incumbent workers, the next topic we are turning to.

After completing FST, newcomers start their real work at actual worksites, which continually provide training. At the time of data collection in 2008, there were three major HRD schemes for incumbent workers: the Skill Development System, (SDS), the Floor Management Development System (FMDS), and job rotation. SDS has two objectives: one is to develop ‘technical skills’ for a particular worksite, another is to link workers’ accumulated skills with their career development.86 FMDS aims particularly to develop ‘problem-solving skills’ and proper supervisory roles for those promoted to be team leader (TL) and group leader (GL).87 Job rotation expands the scope of workers’ skills to enhance their interchangeability in their team.88

Skill Development System (SDS)

SDS has two objectives: to equip incumbent workers with the knowledge and skills required by the particular shop where they work; and to link workers’ accumulated skills with their career development. SDS is expected to value workers’ accumulated skills in promotion, but this has not yet been achieved. The SDS sets ‘general’ knowledge and skill as well as ‘specific’ technical skills requirements that workers need to have. General knowledge and skill cover Kaizen, QCC, standardised work, safety, and teamwork. Meanwhile, specific technical skills cover a wide range of specific content identified by each shop. Each shop is responsible for developing its own training curriculum and evaluation (for general knowledge and skill as well as for their specific contents of technical skills). 89 Trainers are TL and/or GL in each shop, who will also evaluate skills gained by workers under the SDS. ‘Learning by doing’ is again emphasised for SDS through off-line OJT at the training center located in the shop, combined with onsite OJT.

According to HRM staff, this system works well to equip workers with skills to supply the demand for skills in each shop. However, it does not link accumulated skills to career development (promotion) as implemented at TMC (though attempts have been made).90 The company admits that currently they are unable to value the skills accumulated through the SDS, because the SDS-based skill standards are inconsistent. HRM staff explained:

We cannot link the skills accumulated through the SDS to promotion effectively, because each shop designs its own training curriculum by which workers are trained and only evaluated by their supervisors (TL and/or GL) who may not have standard trainer certification. This causes the lack in training standards, which can make the promotion unreliable’.91

Therefore, to fix this problem, TMC advised TMT in 2009 to replace the SDS with the ‘Specific Skill Training’ (SST) to tackle the absence of training standards, while leaving the linkage between accumulated skills and promotion aside until TMT ensures that its training is consistent with identical standards to those at TMC.92 It is expected that the SST will fix the problem of inconsistent skill standards, as TMT’s workers are trained to the same skill standards as those at

13

TMC. If this works well, then TMT will link accumulated skills with promotion. However, at the time of writing, the SST has been applied only at the assembly shop as a pilot project.

Floor Management Development System (FMDS)

As noted earlier, the FMDS aims to prepare team/group leader candidates with supervisory skills, including problem-solving skills as well as proper leader’s roles such as job instruction and coaching.93 The FMDS, therefore, focuses on analytical, decision-making, and problem-solving skills. Meanwhile, leader’s roles pertain to job instruction, coaching, interpersonal skills (proper social interactions with subordinates), ability to promote teamwork, and to encourage subordinates to do kaizen. Upon preparing problem-solving skills and leader’s roles, team/group leaders are also simultaneously equipped with ‘work process skills’, namely coordination, interaction, and the ability to integrate themselves into the work system – or ‘involvement’ and ‘participation’ – although it stretches the meaning of ‘skill’ to include these as skills – even though they are indispensible to life under the TPS. This represents a significant by-product of the FMDS. Actually, FMDS does not provide specific training courses for such skills. However, the scope of training targeted at ‘analytical skills’ and ‘decision and problem-solving skills’ covers the ability to respond promptly so as to detect the abnormality and fix it straightaway.

Conclusion

This article has explored the question of what skills are required for the TPS, particularly at TMT. The literature survey on this question found division between those who thought the TPS required ‘high’ skills, and those who thought it required ‘low’ skills. This ‘high-low’ divide in the literature does not bode well for clarity, and the content of the skill descriptors may turn out to be wanting. This literature did not really get at the way (mis)conceptualisations of ‘skill’ played an important role in ‘control’ strategies at TMT.

Notwithstanding the identified limitations of the ‘high-low skills’ literature, the researcher compared the set of TPS skills listed there, and found that all of them are required at TMT. These are skills named ‘broad-based’, ‘analytical’, ‘decision-making’, ‘problem-solving’, ‘trouble-shooting’, ‘interpersonal’ (teamwork), and ‘work involvement’. Three insights emerged. First, the types of skills required depend on the level/position of workers. At a low position, workers (team member, TM) required only ‘broad-based’ skills to cooperate well with standardised work and heijunka. However, more highly positioned workers (team leader, TL and group leader, GL) also need analytical, decision-making, problem-solving, and trouble-shooting skills, to solve production problems. Meanwhile, workers of all levels are required to have interpersonal skills (teamwork) and work involvement. The ability to work in teams is very important, because all workers are expected to be able to replace others in the team. The second insight arose in consideration of ‘work involvement’. To TMT, ‘work involvement’ is broadly defined, including participation and compliance, as well as positive attitudes to conform to the TPS demands. Third, this did not necessarily mean that low-level workers (TM) have ‘low’ skills because they require only broad-based skills to complete standardised work and heijunka. Rather (and speculatively), they may need other skills, importantly those conceptualized as ‘work process skills’ that help them to cooperate well with highly interrelated work processes under the pressure of short working time. (This point was not an outcome as such of the research, only an optional conceptual ‘add on’ and potentially a direction for future research.) Compliance is not a ‘skill’ but is crucial to workers’ effectiveness because it is a precondition for the exercise of work process and other skills.

14

In illuminating this conceptual conundrum – essentially, how to apply the word ‘skill’ to worker characteristics – the article drew two insights from the ‘service sector skill’ debate. The first is that the broad concept of ‘skill’, which includes ‘attributes of compliance’, makes it possible to exert control over workers by making promotion conditional on conformist behavior defined as ‘competencies’. This is established this by reference to TMTs’ ‘Competency Assessment’ (CA) system, which defined certain ‘competencies of compliance’ as necessary for promotion, and in a way consistent with the ‘Toyota Way’ – TMC’s relatively new channel for ‘dominance’ effects, aimed at shaping the practices of work at its overseas affiliates. The second insight to be drawn from the ‘service sector skill’ debate is that many work processes contain unrecognised skills that are highlighted by the application of theoretical models drawn from diverse disciplines, like the theories of articulation work and work process knowledge, and which may escape the conventional thinking on ‘skill’. These are real skills – learned capabilities for awareness, coordination, and interaction – not ‘competencies of compliance’, although they are frequently ‘invisible’ in many work processes. The work processes of the TPS may appear unskilled, composed as they are of finely specified and fragmented tasks, yet the capacities of coordination required to knit unrelated tasks into a smooth flow and to think of ways to modify that flow under pressure may not be well registered in existing skill taxonomies. They may be better highlighted by skill taxonomies influenced by theoretical perspectives that are focused on conceptualizing work as a flow, or a process, and as composed of ‘tasks’, ‘lines’, and ‘arcs’ of work, requiring ‘articulation’. Conceptualisation of the ‘second order’ skills of ‘supra’ work and the skills of ‘rectification work’ derived from the articulation work framework may provide guidance. However, although this article has not been specifically focused on the TPS skill content, the combination of theoretical perspectives seems fruitful and could generate future research on unrecognised skill content.

References

Adler, P. & Cole, R. 1993, ‘Designed for learning: A tale of two auto plants’, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 34, no.3, pp. 85-94.Allwood, J. M. & Lee, W. L. 2004, ‘The impact of job rotation on problem solving Skills’, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 856-881.Attewell, P. 1990, ‘What is skill?’, Work and Occupation, Vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 422-448.Bamber, L. & Dale, B. 2000, ‘Lean production: A study of application in a traditional manufacturing environment’, Production Planning & Control, Vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 291-298.Berggren, C. 1992, Alternative to lean production: Work organization in the Swedish auto industry, ILR Press, Ithaca.Boreham, N. 2002, ‘Work process knowledge in technological and organisation Development’ in Work process knowledge, eds. N. Boreham, R. Samurcay & M. Fischer, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 1-14.Boyatzis, R. 1982, The competent manager: A model of effective performance, Wiley, New York.Braverman, H. 1974, Labour and monopoly capital, Monthly Press, New York.Brown, P., Green, A., & Lauder, H. 2001, High Skills: Globalisation, competitiveness and skill formation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Burawoy, M. 1981, ‘Terrain of contest: Factory and state under capitalism and socialism’, Socialist Review, Vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 83-115.Cappelli, P. & Rogovsky, N. 1994, ‘New work systems and skill requirements’, International Labour Reviews, Vol. 133, no. 2, pp. 205-220. Coleman, B, J. & Vaghefi, M. R. 1994, ‘Heijunka: A key to the Toyota production system’, Production and Inventory Management Journal, Forth Quarter, pp. 31-35. Crouch, C., Finegold, D., & Sako, M. 1999, Are skills the answer? The political economy of skill creation in advanced industrial countries, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Delbridge, R., Lowe, J., & Oliver, N. 2000, ‘Shopfloor responsibilities under lean Teamworking’, Human Relations, Vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 459-479.Dohse, K., Jurgen, U., & Malsch, T. 1985, ‘From ‘Fordism’ to ‘Toyotism’? The social organisation of labour process in the Japanese automobile industry’, Politic and Society, Vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 115-146.Drief, H. & Dolfsma, W. 2009, ‘Path dependence, initial conditions, and routines in Organisation’, Journal of Organisational Change Management, Vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 49-72.

15

Eldridge, D. & Nisar, T. 2006, ‘The significance of employee skill in flexible work Organisation’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 918-937.Friedman, A. 1977, ‘Responsible autonomy versus direct control over the labour Process’, Capital and Class, Vol. 1, pp. 43-57.Friel, D. 2005, ‘Transferring a lean production concept from Germany to the United States: The impact of labour laws and training system’, Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 50-58.Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. 1968, Time for dying, Aldine publishing company, Chicago.Gough, R. & Fastenau, M. 2004, ‘Implementing different concepts of lean production: Workers' experience of lean production in North America transplants’, International Journal of Employment Studies, Vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 91-123. Graham, L. 1995, On the line of Suburu-Isuzu: The Japanese model and the American worker, ILR Press, New York.Grugulis, I., Warhurst, C., & Keep, E. 2004, ‘What’s happening to ‘skill’?, in The skills that matter, eds. C. Warhurst, I. Grugulis & E. Keep, Palgrave MacMillan, Houndmills, Ch 1.Grugulis, I. 2008, Skill, training and human resource management: A critical text, Palgrave Macmillan, UK.Hampson, I. 1999, ‘Lean production and the Toyota production system: Or, the case of the forgotten production concepts’, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 369-391. Hampson, I. & Junor, A. 2005, ‘Invisible work, invisible skills: Interactive customer service as articulation work’, New Technology, Vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 166-181.Hampson, I. & Junor, A. 2008, Labouring over conceptions of service sector skill: Old question, ‘new’ theoretical resources, and ‘new’ skills, Paper prepared for the International Labour Process Conferences, Dubin, Work matters.Hampson, I. & Junor, A. 2009, ‘Employability’ and the substance of soft Skills, Paper Presented to the International Labour Process Conference, Edinburgh, April 6-8.Hampson, I. & Junor, A. 2010, ‘Putting the process back in: Rethinking service skill’, Work Employment Society, Vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 526-545.Ishida, M. 1997, ‘Japan: Beyond the model of lean production’, in After lean production: Evolving employment practices in the world auto industry, eds. T. A. Kochan, R. D. Lansbury & J. P. MacDuffie, Cornell University Press, New York, pp. 45-61.Keep, E. & Mayhew, K. 1999, ‘The assessment: Knowledge, skill, and Competitiveness’, Oxford Review of Economic, Vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1-15.Kumazawa, M. & Yamada, J. 1992, ‘Jobs and skills under the lifelong nenko employment practices’, in The transformation of work, ed. S. Wood, Routledge, London, pp. 102-126.Lafer, G. 2004, ‘What is ‘skill’? Training for discipline in the low-wage labour Market’, in The skills that matter, eds. C. Warhurst, I. Grugulis & E. Keep, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 109-127.MacDuffie, J. P. 1995, ‘Human resource bundles and manufacturing performance: Organisation logic and flexible production systems in the world auto industry’, Industrial and Labor Relation Review, Vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 197-221. MacDuffie, J. P. & Pil, F. 1997, ‘Changes in auto industry employment practices: An international overview’, in After lean production: Evolving employment practices in the world auto industry, eds. T. A. Kochan, R. D. Lansbury & J. P. MacDuffie, Cornell University Press, New York, pp. 9-42.Marglin, S. 1974, ‘What do bosses do? The origins and function of hierarchy in capitalist production’, Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 6, July, pp. 60-112.Mayo, A. 2001, The human value of the enterprise: Valuing people as assets – monitoring, measuring, managing , Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London.McClelland, D. 1973, ‘Testing for competence rather than intelligence’, American Psychologist, Vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 1-14.Monden, Y. 1993, Toyota production system: An integrated approach to Just-In-Time, Institute of Industrial Engineers, US.Ohno, T. 1988, Toyota production system: Beyond large-scale production, Productivity Press, US.Oliver, N. & Wilkinson, B. 1992, The Japanisation of British industry: New developments on the 1990s, Blackwell, Oxford.Rinehart J., Cristopher, H. & David, R. 1997, Just another car factory: Lean production and its discontents, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and LondonRubery, J. 1978, ‘Structured labour market, in Worker organisation and low pay’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 2, pp. 17-36.Shibata, H. 2001, ‘Productivity and skill at a Japanese transplant and its parent Company’, Work and Occupation, Vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 234-260.Shibata, H. 2008, ‘The transfer of Japanese work practices to plants in Thailand’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 330-345.Stone, K. 1973, ‘The Origins of job structures in the steel industry’, Radical America, Vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 19-66.Strauss, A. L. 1993, Continual permutation of action, Aldine De Guyter, New York.Strauss, A. 1985, ‘Work and the division of labor’, The Sociology Quarterly, Vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 1-19.Strauss, A., Fagerhaugh, S., & Wiener, C. 1985, Social organisation of medical

16

work, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Suchman, L. 1996, ‘Supporting articulation work’, in Computerisation and controversy, ed. R. Kling, Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 407-423.Thompson, P. 1989, The nature of work: An introduction to debates on the labour Process, Macmillan, London.TMC (Toyota Motors Corporation, Japan). 1998, The Toyota Production System, TMC, Japan.TMC (Toyota Motors Corporation, Japan). 2001, Toyota Way 2001, Toyota Institute, Japan.Vidal, M. 2007, ‘Lean production, worker empowerment, and job satisfaction: A qualitative analysis and critique’, Critical Sociology, Vol. 33, pp. 247-278. Warhurst, C., Grugulis, I., & Keep, E. 2004, The skills that matter, Palgrave Macmillan, London.Womack, J., Jones, D., Roos, D. 1990, The machine that changed the world, Rawson, New York.Wood, S. 1989, ‘The Japanese management model: Tacit skills in shop floor Participation’, Work and Occupations, , Vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 446-460.

17

1 MacDuffie, 1995; MacDuffie & Pil, 19972 Friel, 20053 Driel & Dolfma, 2009: 58; Berggen, 19924 Finegold & Wagner, 19985 Crouch et al., 1999; Keep & Mayhew, 1999; Lafer, 20046 Weerasombat, 2011:87 Strauss et al., 19858 Boreham, 20029 Hampson & Junor, 2005; 201010 Womack et al., 1990: 13-1411 MacDuffie & Pil, 1997: 1112 Monden, 1993: 16613 TMC, 1998: 10, 23-27, 2914 Monden, 1993: 16615 Rinehart et al., 1997; Berggren, 1992; Driel & Dolfma, 2009: 5816 Fucini & Fucini, 1990; Graham, 1995; Rinehart et al., 199717 Coleman & Vaghefi, 1994: 3218 Monden, 1993: 16619 Ishida, 1997: 51; MacDuffie, 1995: 201-20220 MacDuffie, 1995: 201-20221 MacDuffie, 1995: 201-202; MacDuffie & Pil, 1997: 1422 MacDuffie & Pil, 1997: 14; MacDuffie, 1995: 201-202; Delbridge et al., 2000: 1474; Wood, 1989: 449; Bamber &Dale, 2000: 293; Allwood & Lee, 200423 Shibata, 2001; 200824 Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1994: 207; Bamber & Dale, 2000: 29425 Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1994: 207; Wood, 1989: 449; Graham 1995, cited in Gough & Fastenau, 2004: 10526 Delbridge et al., 2000; Oliver & Wilkinson, 1992: 3927 Monden, 1993: 186; Ishida, 1997: 51; Delbridge et al., 2000: 1474; Wood, 1989: 451-452; Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1994: 206, 208, 210; Oliver & Wilkinson, 1992: 35; Hampson, 1999: 32; Eldridge & Nisar, 2006: 923; Vidal, 2007: 24728 TDRI, 2006, Ch 2: 4-5.29 The government issued a number of plans for HRD, for example HRD guidelines for personnel development for long-term industry development (TDRI, 1998a), Master plan for HRD in manufacturing and services in Thailand 1997-2005 (TDRI, 1998b).30 Interview with MOL senior official on skill development, 29 August 2008.31 NESDB, 2005, Ch 3: 10632 Interview with Director of Bureau of Vocational Education Standards & Qualification, Vocational Education Commission, MOE, 9 October 2008; Interview with Senior Expert on Skill Development, MOL, 29 August 2008.33 Sangmeata, 200434 Walsh & Anantarangsi, 200835 MOE, 200836 This survey was conducted in 2005 in order to support the government plan on ‘Human resource development strategy for the competitiveness of core industries in Thailand’ (NESDB, 2005, Ch 3).37 NESDB, 2005, Ch 3: 218-22138 Braverman, 197439 Thompson, 198940 Dohse et al., 1985:12341 Keep & Mayhew, 1999:10; also see Crouch et al, 1999: 22242 Brown et al., 2001: 6543 Lafer, 200444 Hampson & Junor, 201045 Gatta et al, 2009 46 Boyatzis, 198247 McClelland, 1973

48 Hampson & Junor, 2009: 6 49 Hampson & Junor, 2005; 201050 Hampson & Junor, 2005; 201051 Brown et al., 2001:2352 Hampson & Junor, 2005; 2008; 201053 See Strauss, 1985; 199354 Strauss, 1985: 8; Strauss, 1993: 8755 Strauss et al., 1985:18056 Strauss, 1985:2, 857 Boreham, 2002: 6-758 Ibid59 Interview with Production Manager B, Gateway Plant, 16 September 2008.60 Interview with Production Manager A, Samrong Plant, 15 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager B, Gateway Plant, 16 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager C, BanPho Plant, 17 September 2008.61 Ibid62 Ibid63 Ibid64 Ibid65 Ibid66 Ibid67 Monden, 1993: 186; Ishida, 1997: 51; Delbridge et al, 2000: 1474; Wood, 1989: 451-452; Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1994: 206, 208, 210; Oliver & Wilkinson, 1992: 35; Hampson, 1999: 32; Eldridge & Nisar, 2006: 923; Vidal, 2007: 24768 Interview with Production Manager A, Samrong Plant, 15 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager B, Gateway Plant, 16 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager C, BanPho Plant, 17 September 2008.69 Interview with Production Manager A, Samrong Plant, 15 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager B, Gateway Plant, 16 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager C, BanPho Plant, 17 September 2008.70 Group interview with TMT Executives, Samrong Plant, 26 August 2008; Interview with Production Manager A, Samrong Plant, 15 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager B, Gateway Plant, 16 September 2008; Interview with Production Manager C, BanPho Plant, 17 September 2008.71 Mayo, 2001: 8872 Thompson , 198973 Dohse et al., 1985: 123-574 Dohse et al., 1985: 13675 TMC, 2001: 176 Group interview with HRM Managers, Samrong Plant, 12 September 2008.77 TMC, 2001: 2-378 Ibid79 Group Interview with HRM Staff, Samrong Plant, 12 September 2008.80 As mentioned above, the key role of the front line supervisor, who might also be the union representative, without means of resolving any dispute over the supervisor’s rating, makes this system very like that criticised by Kumazawa & Yamada.

81 Adler & Cole, 199382 Interview with AP-GPC Assistant Manager, AP-GPC, 22 September 2008.83 Interview with AP-GPC trainer, AP-GPC, 22 September 2008 ใ84 Interview with AP-GPC Assistant Manager, AP-GPC, 22 September 2008; Interview with AP-GPC trainer, AP-GPC, 22 September 2008.85 Morishima, 1995a; Koike, 1988; Koike & Inoki, 199186 Group interview with HRM staff, Samrong Plant, 12 September 2008.87 Ibid88 Ibid89 TMT, 2002: 10-13, 18-2190 Group interview with HRM staff, Samrong Plant, 12 September 2008.91 Ibid

92 Phone interview with AP-GPC Assistant Manager, 7 June 2010.93 Group interview with HRM staff, Samrong Plant, 12 September 2008.