Management and Control Systems for Production : Activities in the Japanese Steel Industry (1)

Abstract

In the aftermath of the bubble economy and the rise of yen against dollar in the 1990's, the Japanese steel industry has been struggling to restructure its management in order to regain the global competitiveness it held in the 1980's. As part of that effort, production systems, which have developed unique features with the introduction of advanced information technology, will have to be revamped soon. Nevertheless, very few papers have been published on so called Japanese-style production systems in the steel industry compared with the abundance in the automobile industry. This paper and its sequel seek to use the viewpoint of the systems approach to clarify the structure, features, development process and future perspective for production systems in the Japanese steel industry.5KJ00005057435論文Articledepartmental bulletin pape