抄録
Many studies have shown that Japanese automakers and their respective suppliers cooperate closely even in product development processes. However, most of these studies merely analyzed individual product development projects and discussed factors affecting it, such as development lead times, development man-hours, and product quality, thereby failing to cover cooperation between them in the advanced research and development processes.
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the latter aspect of electronic and electrical components in the Japanese automobile industry by using patent map analysis method.
