2008 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 1-20
Since the mid 1990s, production in the Japanese ceramic industry has been rapidly declining. One of the characteristics of the ceramic industry is that many medium-and small-sized companies agglomerate and form production areas. This paper, through considering the ceramic production areas’ production and shipping structures, discusses how production areas respond to the decline in production.
This study examined production scale as well as product structure, and compared three production areas: Mino (Gifu prefecture), Yokkaichi (Mie prefecture), and Kutani (Ishikawa prefecture). Mino is a large-scale production area that produces various pottery and porcelain products. Yokkaichi is a specialized production area that produces a few specialty products. Kutani is a production area that produces high-quality products. Recently, all three production areas are experiencing a rapid decline in the volume of production.
The results of the study can be summarized as follows.
Each area of production has three elements: “distinctive technology” (products characteristic of the region and the technology to create them), “innovativeness” (new products that will be accepted by the market and the technology to create them), and “sales ability” (the ability to sell products on a nationwide scale). The method of development of these three elements creates each production area's characteristic system of production and shipping.
In the Mino production area, in addition to distinctive technology that has existed continuously since the sixteenth century, innovativeness was established after World War II to mass produce a variety of ceramic products. These goods are sold nationwide and overseas through the sales ability of wholesalers. The Yokkaichi production area possesses distinctive technology to produce kyuusu (teapots). Unrelated to this, innovativeness was established in 1959 to mass produce donabe (earthenware pots). The Kutani production area relies mainly on distinctive technology to decorate porcelain with lavish designs, but innovativeness has not been established. Both Yokkaichi and Kutani have weaker sales ability than Mino does.
With the above-mentioned production and shipping structures as the background, each production area is responding differently to the decline in production. In Mino, wholesalers are focused on the problem, and measures such as product changes are being carried out. In Yokkaichi, measures such as product changes in regards to individual businesses are taking place. However, product changes are not being considered in Kutani.
At present, no production areas can stop the decline in production. The main reasons are thought to be: 1) new “innovativeness” based on “distinctive technology” is not being created; 2) a lack of originality in current “innovativeness” makes products easily copied in other production areas; 3) because business-wise measures are the norm, little use is made of inter-industry relationships, leading to the breakdown of inter-industry relationships; 4) wholesalers, who are responsible for “sales ability,” are experiencing a decline in their ability to plan and gather information; 5) wholesalers and production areas are not engaging in collaborative activities.
It is thought that development of production areas could occur if a structure was created for “innovativeness” based on “distinctive technologies”, followed by the establishment of a cycle of continuous creation of “innovativeness,” which was then supported by “sales ability.”
