| NOTA |
(★)(´This book identifies capability-building competition as the main engine of industrial development. Media coverage of competition in the automobile industry has tended to dwell on eye-catching stories, such as trade disputes and mergers and acquisitions. Those stories, however, are but a sideshow, at most, in the larger tale of competition among automakers. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since this book first appeared in Japanese in 2003. Automakers prone to dramatic fluctuations in business and financial performance have --well-- undergone more fluctuations in business and financial performance. Equally significant, however, is the ´boring´ side of the industry : the automakers --led by Toyota and Honda-- who remain unflaggingly profitable and who simply keep on growing. Shifts in currency exchange rates might buffet automakers´ price competitiveness in export markets. A phenomenally successful model might inflate an automaker´s earnings for a year or two. But the automakers that keep chugging along through it all are those that focus less on such aspects of ´surface competitiveness´ than on the ´deep competitiveness´ essentials of training employees, minimizing inventories, improving quality, shortening lead time, and otherwise fortifying their organizational capability. Building capabilities in manufacturing is a long-term challenge, and the basic emphases of the book published in 2003 remain as pertinent today as then. [From the author´s introduction]´ ◆Takahiro Fujimoto has served since 1998 as a professor in the University of Tokyo´s Graduate School of Economics, and he has concurrently headed the university´s Manufacturing Management Research Center since 2003. Dr. Fujimoto´s chief research emphases are technology and operations management and business administration. He earned a bachelor´s degree in economics from the University of Tokyo in 1979 and a doctorate from the Harvard Business School in 1989. After earning his doctorate, he remained at Harvard as a researcher, as a visiting professor (1996-97), and as a senior research associate (1997). Dr. Fujimoto has also served as associate professor on the University of Tokyo´s Faculty of Economics, as a visiting professor at the University of Lyon, and as a visiting researcher at INSEAD. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Product Development Performance : Strategy, Organization, and Management in the World Auto Industry (Harvard Business School Press, 1991, with Kim Clark) ; Transforming Automobile Assembly (Springer-Verlag, 1997, with Koichi Shimokawa and Ulrich Juergens) ; The Evolution of a Manufacturing System at Toyota (Oxford University Press, 1999) ; and Toyota Shisutemu no Genten [Origin of the Toyota System](Bunshindo, 2001, with Koichi Shimokawa, in Japanese)) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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