2014 Volume 13 Issue 10 Pages 371-406
During the past few decades, Japanese electric and electronics companies have been struggling to compete against lower-priced rivals from South Korea and China. As a result, they lost international market share. However, are Japanese genbas really losing their competitiveness? This paper investigates 1) does Japanese genba maintains competitiveness and how? 2) If so, what are the characteristics of those organizations? And 3) what are the factors that are critical for Japanese genba to maintain competitiveness in the future. Interviews with eight successful Japanese electric and electronics companies and survey with 97 business units were conducted. The findings show that Japanese electric and electronics companies are maintaining their competitiveness at the genba level. Data shows that most of them maintain higher levels of performance than their overseas counterparts except for cost. Some common aspects of those companies are 1) shifting their business transaction from “B to C” to “B to B”; and 2) gathering functions such as product development and production engineering at the Japanese factory. In addition, three factors; “perspective”, “communication between top management and genba” and “visualization” together enhance capabilities at the genba.
