After Nissan Motor’s quality inspection scandal last year, the company’s chief executive, Hiroto Saikawa, slammed at a press conference in November. Image source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Sina US stocks Beijing time on the 7th Wall Street Journal News, superb manufacturing process and production efficiency have helped the Japanese economy to successfully transform after the war, not only subverting global business practices, all kinds of talk about Japanese manufacturing management manuals and business collections also Born. However, the model once was collapsed.
In recent months, Kobe Steel Ltd., Mitsubishi Materials Corp. and Subaru Corp. have all acknowledged the existence of quality inspection fraud, but they also said that there has been no safety. problem. Last year, Takata Corp. declared bankruptcy after the company admitted that it had supplied more than 50 million defective car airbags in the United States. Mitsubishi Motors Co. acknowledged that it had reported hidden dangers and falsified fuel economy data.
In September last year, Nissan Motor Co., the world's fifth-largest automaker, revealed that its Japanese factory allowed unqualified personnel to carry out final quality checks on some of the new cars before leaving the factory. This problem has existed since the 1990s. According to Nissan Motors, in the event of an audit, the foreman usually gives the trainee the badge of the work of the certified inspector.
A person familiar with the process said that the quality results of the new car were recorded on paper and then bound in a folder, so it is almost impossible to figure out how many cars involved in the quality inspection. Nissan Motors recalled 1.2 million vehicles in Japan, almost equivalent to all the cars produced in the three years to September 2017. Nissan Motor said it has never compromised on security issues.
Misconduct in the company is a global problem, but the corporate scandal in Japan undermines the core cheats of the country's best-selling products and the foundations that support Japan's self-positioning. Japanese brands have been synonymous with quality and scored high in many quality surveys, but in the past two years JD. Power's "IniTIal Quality Study" is overtaken by US automakers, and other product manufacturers are catching up with Japan.
These scandals have the potential to exacerbate the global market share of Japanese-made goods and add momentum to its main competitor, China, to become the world's largest economy. Japan’s management and manufacturing theory has been among the best in the world, but it has also been questioned because of Japanese company scandals.
Akira Takeuchi (third from left), president of Mitsubishi Materials Co., Ltd., sang at a press conference last November. The company previously admitted that a subsidiary has tampered with quality data. Image Source: AKIO KON/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The Japanese model, praised by publications such as Harvard Business Review, relies mainly on the kaizen method (meaning continuous improvement). In practice, it eliminates unnecessary activities, reduces excess inventory, and uses teamwork to solve problems. problem.
The Japanese model puts the enormous responsibility of day-to-day management and innovation on the production line workers on the shop floor. These workers are regarded by many Japanese as craftsmen and traditionally enjoy a lifelong iron rice bowl. In return, workers are fully committed to corporate goals.
A common example is that whenever a serious problem is discovered, Toyota Motor (136.88, -1.88, -1.35%) (Toyota Motor Co.) workers have the right to pull the alarm to stop the production line. Workshop screw or tool placement is considered a major violation and must be corrected.
The current problem is that factory skilled workers are employed on a lifetime to make luxury goods that many Japanese companies cannot afford. According to management consultants and company lawyers who understand the situation, excessive decentralization to production line workers not only makes the company prone to fraud and cut corners, but also gives executives an excuse to shirk their responsibilities.
Tokyo lawyer Hideaki Kubori specializes in dealing with corporate scandals. He said that the genba has fallen, and the Japanese industry has fallen into a crisis because the company has lost control of the scene.
Kobe Steel, headquartered near Osaka, produces high-end steel products for trains, cars and rockets. The company recently admitted to falsifying quality certification documents, which involved hundreds of thousands of products for more than 500 customers.
According to an internal report completed in October last year, in order to maintain profitability, the company required production line workers to work overtime, and executives did not know about the factory's production.
Takashi Ueda, 24, who works at a subcontracting company in Kobe Steel, is responsible for the final quality inspection of metal wires used in automotive engine springs. He said the problems were more serious during the peak season. He said that when the delivery pressure was high, although he pointed out that some products may not meet the quality requirements, Kobe Steel's employees still approved the delivery. In some cases, he said, he had to sacrifice quality for fast delivery.
Hiroya Kawasaki, chief executive of Kobe Steel, bowed at a press conference last October.
A staff member who has been in Kobe Steel for 30 years said that the pressure on the workshop began to increase after the bursting of the Japanese bubble economy in the early 1990s. The employee has served as the manager of the company's factory and has also worked at the company's headquarters.
He said that quality inspectors became one of the first targets to be laid off because they did not seem to be as busy as line workers. The employee said that the production line workers were asked to check the quality themselves, and after the company suspended the recruitment, some quality inspection work was outsourced.
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