Abstract
The Toyota Production System was considered to have achieved high competitiveness through the multi-production to accommodate the maturation of market, and the system of team production and job rotation to improve worker skill levels. The improvement of worker skill levels under the Toyota Production System was argued to contribute to a recombination of conception and execution in ways different from the deskilling and simplification of work in the Taylor-Ford system of production. However, it is an open question whether the Toyota Production System can be characterized as a recombination of conception and execution. Braverman saw the skill formation of workers as the combination of conception and execution, and the process of deskilling in the Taylor system of production as the separation of conception and execution. The establishment of management authority is crucial to his distinction between the separation and the combination of conception and execution. This paper critically examines the argument that the Toyota Production System can be characterized by a recombination of conception and execution. Section 1 shows that the Taylor-Ford system of production is designed to deprive workers of their decision on work pace and work method, leading to the separation of conception and execution. Section 2 investigates the nature of skill formation in the Toyota Production System, in order to show that multi-skilled workers, their quick responses to unexpected happenings and the quality control or kaizen activities provide no evidence for a recombination of conception and execution, and to disprove the argument of Koike and the Regulation school for a recombination of conception and execution. Section 3 shows that the decisions on the pace, method and layout of work for the whole factory are controlled by the management, and concludes that the Toyota Production System separated conception and execution in the most perfect fashion. Who controls the pace and schedule of work is critical in evaluating whether the production system can be characterized by the separation or recombination of conception and execution. The separation of conception and execution in the Toyota Production System is evidenced by the fact that the pace and method of work are controlled exclusively by the management.
