According to the late Professor Masahiko Aoki, Japan is a midst of "moving 30 years," instead of ending "lost 20 years," since Japan is far ahead in the world in terms of the convenience and quality in urban life, and of equal opportunity. In the same token, I am suggesting that the Japanese technology is also in transition. The substantial technological progresses have been introduced in constructing the social infrastructure in Japan. The wide-spread utilization of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and of GPS (Global Positioning System) both in existing and newly built infrastructure are such examples. Therefore, we should make scientific investigation into what is going on in this context. By doing so, we can contribute on guiding the final phase of this 30 years-transition in a right trajectory.

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This paper argues that existing theory on dynamism of product architecture predict architecture shift toward modularity even in the automotive industry that was regarded as integral architecture under some conditions. First, this paper review existing literature on product architecture, and then discusses several reasons why automotive companies are trying to transform the architecture from integral to modular. Finally, this paper raises three main research agenda that have not yet been resolved and clarified in modularity research.

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The potential benefits of architectural approaches to developing new products and of using modular architectures as the basis for new kinds of product strategies have been recognized since the 1990s and elaborated at some length in management research. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to the fundamental changes in management and organizational processes a firm must undergo in order to implement architectural management and modular strategies ("AMMS") successfully. A common misperception among some senior managers is that implementing AMMS involves primarily some technical changes in product designs and some changes in the product development process at the working level. As this paper will argue, however, effective implementation and use of AMMS requires extensive transformations of an organization's processes, structures, and culture. These transformations in turn call for major changes in senior management concerns and activities- i.e., in the way senior managers manage. This paper identifies the essential understanding of AMMS that senior managers must have and the essential leadership roles that senior managers must be willing to fulfill in order to lead their firms through the critical organizational and managerial changes required to implement and use AMMS effectively. This paper also suggests that there are two fundamentally different management approaches to leading the organizational change process needed to implement AMMS. We characterize these as the "programmatic" approach and the "incentives" approach. We evaluate both approaches by identifying the characteristics of a firm's business environment that are likely to determine the potential effectiveness of each approach. We illustrate the issues identified and the recommendations made here with examples drawn from various efforts by European automotive firms to implement AMMS.

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This paper illustrates Renault-Nissan's Common Module Family (CMF) and Mazda's Common Architecture (CA), and discusses their differences and implications for modular product development. Renault-Nissan's CMF is an approach that creates various models by changing combinations of four physical modules and a set of electric/electronic units. Each module has two to three variations. Majority of engineering works will complete by selecting modules from the matrix of the 4+1 big modules. Mazda takes a different approach. Retaining traditional platform structure, CA creates various models flexibly by copying the common design rules, i.e., engineering principles and standard structures, to successive models in the same shape but in different size. With larger product variety and sales volume Renault-Nissan can justify heavier investments in its advanced development to build finer matrix of the technological platform, i.e. CMF, while Mazda, with annual sales of only 1.3 million units, prefers a less modularized approach.

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In this article, the author describes the modularization approaches of European automotive OEMs and analyzes the preconditions of this change. A number of European OEMs have introduced vehicles with new product architectures, such as MQB by VW, EMP2 by PSA, and SPA by VOLVO. All of these new architectures are more modularized than previous one. This architectural shift was enabled by the "Down-sizing" of engines and the shift from RWD to FWD in the C and D segment. These Change can trigger the diversification of product architecture in automotive industry and the change of effective patterns of product development organization and its processes.

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Focusing on the modular production strategy in Hyundai Motor Company (HMC), which was late in entering into the automobile industry, this study investigates the characteristics and the technological catch-up process of the modular production strategy. In particular, from the structural aspects and tactical aspects in the production strategy, this study analyzes the modularization process and strategic efficiency. The characteristics of HMC's modular production strategy can be summarized the modular strategy that is a structure-integrated module design, outsourcing, JIT, a skilled alternative automation and standardization. The standardized modular production strategy based on the digital technology and process automation results in the rapid expansion of global production network, the stabilization of quality, and the improvement of market responsiveness. This technological catch-up pattern has become the power source of HMC's growth.

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By analyzing data obtained from 301 private R&D projects supported by NEDO, Japan's public management organization promoting private R&D, this study identified the factors that influence the spillover effects of private R&D projects receiving public support. In this analysis, we classified a spillover both within and across firms into "technological spillover," "cognitive spillover" and "social-relations spillover," and explored managerial factors that influence each category of the spillovers. Our analyses illustrated two important dilemmas that a public agency supporting private R&D may encounter. First, we found that while the project starting at the exploratory phase had positive effects on technological spillover, a spillover across firms is restricted when the project is of great strategic importance for a firm. Under the increasing social pressure for the efficient use of public funds, supporting a project with great strategic importance for the firm that committed to its commercialization may be easily justified. However this may prevent the spillover of the project outcome. Second, we found that information exchanges with other internal divisions had positive effects on the spillover both within and across firms. Considering the existing study indicating that heavy dependence on public funds makes the project being isolated within the firm, our analysis may suggest the possibility of a public support by itself hindering spillover effects. These results imply the importance of a supporting agency to deliberately consider the objective of the public support, and to confirm the supported projects not being isolated internally having assistance and cooperation from other divisions within firm.

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