Abstract
Production is a basic function of a manufacturing firm. This paper quantitatively clarifies what production management brings high corporate performance, high growth and profitability, in Japan. The firms that heavily invest in production equipment, keeping a new equipment ratio and a mechatronics equipment ratio high, show high performance. So do the firms that highly utilize their production equipment; and highly use outside processing taking advantage of a network industrial structure. The firms that are self-confident about their product quality and those that believe that the sales point of their products is technical originality and not a brand name show high performance. When diversifying businesses, the firms that target market related areas and not technology related areas show high performance. As for human resource management, the firms that pay good attention show high performance: they provide many capacity development measures to employees and motivate factory workers by making work contents interesting.
