Recently,non-regular workers such as temporary, outsourced and dispatched workers have increased rapidly at manufacturing workplaces.On the other hand, quality problems of products have occurred frequently in many famous big firms.This paper considered the relationships between the non-regularization of employment and the quality problems at workplaces by reexamining the research about a certain group of automobile and parts manufacturing firms, including case studies at workplaces.Then we found that it was crucial to involve and train non-regular workers at workplaces for maintaining the quality of products

View full abstract

　Activation of workshops by participation in QC circle activities of vice-employees in Toyota Motor Corporation.
　Among the rapid change of the business environment in Japan,we extremely need the reinforcement of our workshops’ vitality in TMC, in order t o meet customer’s needs for higher quality and provide the best products under the sharp rise of a variety of employees.
　Especially in our manufacturing shops, the ratio that vice-employees occupy for all employees reaches almost 40% indeed. It is most urgent matter that we should develop human resources in order to provide the best products more reasonably and more quickly in the world.
　In this report, we will put our ideas and introduce the practical example of developing quality senses and enhancing positive work environment by having all vice-support members participate in QC circle activities which is very effctive tools for developing workshop’s vitality.
　At first, we will make reference to our opinion that QC circle activities are considered an important TQM activity in TMC, and many effects will be expected when vice-support members participate in QC circle activities.
　Secondly, we will introduce one of success stories based on all members participation in QC circle after instilling an understanding of QC circle activities in vice-support members.
　At last, we will suggest the significance and necessity of participating of vice-employees in QC circle activities.

View full abstract

Hisada plans to create “Ease o f Work, Better Work Environment” for Japanese-Brazilian employees. 「Japanese-Brazilian employees are considered “treasures” of Hisada」

View full abstract

　In the construction industry, the employment system that makes lifetime employment and seniority-based employment is collapsing. And the diversification of the employment system and the mobility of employment are increasing. In such a situation, the corporate education and the human resources development system was not suitable for the current state.It is a cause of the quality accident that occurs by the construction industry in recent years.
　The multilayer subcontract system is one of the features of the construction industry of Japan.The ratio of amounts of money of the main contractor construction and the subcontractor construction is about 60% in 2004.
　We investigated with Architectural Institute of Japan to understand the trend of employment of the construction management engineer of the general contractor (building division) and an education of the engineer last year.
　As a result, the actual condition of a temporary employee or a contracted employee became clear. There are over 12% temporary employees or contracted employees in major general contractors’ construction sites. Moreover,there is unbalance of age composition. Mid-career employment increases because skilled engineers are requested,too.
　Heafter, necessary skills for the site engineer must be cleared and a common learning system should be developed by academic-industrial cooperation.

View full abstract

　The quality loss of products i n the Japanese manufacturing industry is an increasing concern.It has been argued that reasons for this quality loss include not only the management system but the way of staffing and the decline of skill level.In light of the falling standards of the manufacturing industry such as the quality loss of products,this article focuses on the manufacturing industry’s product development, and examines the present use and the challenges of temporary agency workers.Furthermore,it also introduces the backgrounds to the increase in the use of temporary agency workers within the c ompanies’ human resources management.

View full abstract

　The pension eligibility age is gradually being raised from 60 to 65 yeas old for save of the public pension expenditure. Almost Japanese large firms have introduced the systems for continuing re-employment after mandatory retirement age 60 gradually up to 65 since the revised Law concerning the Stabilization of Employment of Older Workers was enacted in April 2006.The issues are how to utilize re-employed workers effectively, especially in large firms.In near future, it should be necessary to extend the mandatory retirement age up to 65.

View full abstract

　This paper deals with statistical comparison between several kinds of signal-response systems having the same objective function.Assume that these systems have a common binary signal and a quantitative response, respectively. The problem is formulated by the statistical test of the homogeneity of the noncentrality parameters of noncentral t distributions. Consider the case where the same set of test items is assigned to the several systems so that observed quantitative observations become dependent. New simple testing procedures are derived based on the variance stabilizing transformation. It is shown that the proposed procedures are conservative in almost every case. The influence of dependencies on the efficiencies is also investigated.It is shown that assigning the same set to different systems is almost more efficient than using independent sets.

View full abstract

　As our society gets more environmentally conscious, manufacturers have to incorporate “ environmental qualities ” into their products.This paper proposes a general design methodology to support effctively environmentally consciousness design of products.The methodology employs three tools ； LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), QFDE (Quality Function Deployment for Environment), and TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). QFDE is a tool developed by modifying and extending QFD with incorporating environmental aspects, and is extended further in this paper.In addition, connecting consecutive two tools is realized by established relations among those tools. The presented methodology is proved through application to a hair dryer to support effectively the product planning and conceptual design stages. For instance, designers could utilize one of LCA results that the product has a high impact on the global warming through energy consumption during its use phase to define a requirement objectively in QFDE, “ reduce the energy consumption ” with a high weighting. TRIZ allowed designers to generate improvement solutions such as using resonance frequency utilizing a QFDE result that “ dry quickly ” and “ dry quietly ” have a contradiction.The methodology has a larger benefit than is obtained from utilizing those three tools independently

View full abstract

　After the bursting of the bubble economy in Japan, consumption patterns shifted from a demand for “multifunctional products” to one for “individual fitting products”. To deal with this change, various marketing studies have been carried out to extract information that can be used for developing “hot-selling” products. The problem is that it is diffcult to extract useful information about customers’ “potential needs”.
　We have developed a method for allowing the data collected using a customer satisfaction questionnaire to be analyzed so that potential customer needs are effciently extracted from the data.Quality elements (product functions) are mapped in three dimensions：（1） degree of satisfaction,（2） degree of expectation,and （3） degree of significance. Degree of satisfaction is the customers’ evaluation of each quality element when they use the product. Degree of expectation is the customers’ subjective priority for each element when they purchase the product. Degree of significance is the significance, as perceived by the customers, of each element to the product as a whole when they use the product. This mapping enables “potential needs” to be distinguished from “surface needs” and customer needs to be categorized as “real needs” or “false needs”. Strategies for product development and sales promotion can be developed based on where each quality element is mapped.

View full abstract

　The railroad service called “Tsukuba Express (TX)” started in August24, 2005, connecting Akihabara and Tsukuba i n the fastest 45 minutes. It is expected that for the retailers of Tsukuba, the population of the city will increase, leading to the expansion of the market size. However, it may also increase the number of consumers going shopping to Tokyo and Chiba.
　In this paper, the market and consumer’s behaviors in Tsukuba, and their changes were analyzed in the light of opening of TX, where the effectiveness of service quality were investigated. First, we examined how the change in just the time distances from the start of TX has an effect on the purchase behaviors of the people living along TX on the basis of a retailing gravitation model (Modified Hubbard Model). In this model, the places to purchase were assumed to be Tsukuba, several areas along TX, and areas in Tokyo and Chiba. Second, a questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the purchase behavior of people living along TX before starting TX, particularly focusing on Department Store A whichi is a well-known retailer in Tsukuba and Department Stores (including Shopping Centers) in Tokyo and Chiba.We examined how the consumers perceive several evaluation items such as loyalty, service quality, and overall customer satisfaction, and how their purchase intention after starting TX would be. Furthermore, covariance structure analysis was conducted to investigate which factors have an effect on the consumers’ loyalty. From these results, we discuss how service quality elements would be important in order to improve the attractiveness of the retailers in Tsukuba.

View full abstract