Article ID: 0170313a
In the Japanese electrical and electronics industry, examples abound of factory managers proposing and introducing new products for production in factories that have retained their competitiveness. In other words, adding new products activates shop floor communication. This research uses data from a survey to analyze the “openness” (kazetōshi, which literally means "ventilation" in Japanese, is an indicator of communication activity) of the shop floor organization. This analysis, while not revealing a correlation between openness and quality, cost, delivery, and flexibility (QCDF), does reveal a positive, significant correlation between openness, the “number of new product introductions,” and “new product proposal/development.” In reality, factories in which the latter two factors had a greater presence had good openness. This suggests that factory managers’ actions and policies of proposing and adding new products help to activate shop floor organizational communication.
