The study of the mother factory started from our research project that published the report in 1995.The study was passed 20 years from the first publication.The aim of this article make clear the results of this study and the future research subjects.Toward this aim,firstly,I explain the role of mother factory.According to my research,the mother factory becomes the place that,through accepting the foreign factory's employees,the employees share the tacit knowledge of the mother factory. Also, the mother factory converts the tacit knowledge that accumulated in the mother factory, into the explicit knowledge. By this thing, the foreign factory can use the production knowledge that the mother factory possess under the different overseas environment. In addition, the factory helps to make the place that shares the tacit knowledge in the foreign factory through sending the employees who works in the mother factory.Secondly,this article shows new research subjects. In the situation that the globalization of company is progressing, the future issues are how the relationship of the mother and foreign factory changes.

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The production engineering of Japan has supported the rapid increase of overseas production bases through the mother function, in which the new manufacturing technology development of method,equipment and die,as well as the model line building have been implemented in Japan and applied them to overseas. However, due to the too much precedence in this overseas support, technology development has been delayed and the storage of technology has run out. In order to tackle with changes of market needs and competitors, we have reconstructed the front loading technology development capabilities, improved the company structure and human cultivation system.

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RICOH mainly produces imaging products, industrial products and provide products, services and solutions to our customers. RICOH Group includes production sites in Japan,Europe,United States,China and the Asian region.Each site plays an important role.Sites located in Japan have the expanded role to fulfill the “Mother Function”of the RICOH Group sites. However, in execution of this function,we have identified some issues and challenges.To fully replete the role of the “Mother Function”, we must challenge the following items :
1.As the“Mother Function”,we must model the gemba (process and place)as the breeding ground for kaizen and innovation.
2.The gemba is the place we challenge new products and businesses and develop new production systems.
3.We must continually evaluate our talent and foster the development of our human resources in the Production Group.
4.In some cases,the personnel engaged in the Mother Function role currently possess a superficial knowledge of production information and tools globally deployed. However, a deep and wide grasp not only the information and tools are necessary,also the purpose,aim and focus of each is needed to fulfill the Mother Function role.Our human resources development is based on our rich heritage as a manufacturer as well as our mindset to be forward thinking emphasis on the value of breaking through on preconceptions.

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Nissan challenges to improve our global competitiveness by adapting to global market changes.
In such an environment,Nissan has increased overseas production based on the“local production for local consumption”concept. The key is how to improve the efficiency of overseas production for successful globalization. Nissan has established the “Alliance Production Way”to deploy to overseas plants. APW features “Two never endings”which lead all of our activities to focus on customer requirements. Based on the APW, Nissan established strategic “4G”to promote local production, such as Global Training Center, Global Package Design Center, Global Process Engineering Center and Global Launching Expert. APW principles have been accurately and efficiently transferred to overseas plants. Meanwhile, Japanese plants have lost their relative competitiveness.To break through,they started many activities heading for “global No.1.”One of the examples is the unconventional low cost automation using “Karakuri”. Such challenges to innovate our “manufacturing”are derived from an APW characteristic of“Never ending quest to identify problems and put in place solutions.”This is the exact role for Japanese plants to play as “Mothers”.

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More than 45 years have passed since my university professor first lectured me about TQM. Once again, I rediscover the significant importance of TQM. Since my late father,the former president of GC introduced GQC (GC's TQC)in 1981,I have been leading management as President for more than 30 years by putting GQM as the core of management tool.What I learned about TQM at the university,my father's aspiration and the teaching of “SEMUI”,GC's corporate philosophy cover the same basic concepts of TQM such as“Customer-oriented”,“Next processes are our customers” and “Concerted and united efforts for better management”. Our TQM efforts are based on the premise that within GC,“we must act as a strongly-connected member of ‘GC Associates'and we must be free from selfish thoughts and respect each other”, while outside GC, “we must do everything by thinking from the standpoint of others”.

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This paper proposes the new usage of orthogonal array experiments having missing data.All of experiments are not put into practice, and some specified experiments are properly eliminated.
Thus it becomes the design under which the information matrix derived from the design matrix of no futility of parameters has inverse matrix. It is non-orthogonal,however,statistical inference becomes possible as orthogonal array experiments which have missing data.
The interaction effects can be detected, also experiments'size becomes more smaller. It is suitable to the requests of experimenters who would like to reduce the number of experiments. As the results of simulation, when there are interactions, it has confirmed that it can be evaluated substantially by orthogonal array having missing data. But, the power of test in case of mixed orthogonal array varied compared with expected values, because the interactions have partial confounding among the other main effects.Simultaneously,it becomes clearly that the ineffective factors are judged to be significant.
When there are no interactions, every factor is orthogonal to each other in case of mixed orthogonal array, and power of test was slightly higher than orthogonal array having missing data,but both of them give approximately the same results.

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For decades, a variety of software development technique has been practiced. However, a number of studies to objectively measure their QCD effectiveness is rather limited. Since there seems to be many mutually influencing factors for QCD effectiveness,it is not simple to single out a specific factor and measure its effectiveness. I propose a method to measure software development techniques for their influence on QCD effectiveness in terms of a controlled major element, which has one of the biggest influencing factors on QCD the ratio manufactured by an outside organization. I also propose a model with a covariance structural analysis which allows each technique a level of influence of outsourcing ratio on QCD. This model has been applied with ISBSG 1,352 data, and 14 techniques were measured, out of which 7 techniques were found significantly influencing on QCD.

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When a product quality problem happens on the manufacturing line,it is usually determined that other hidden incidents take place which lead up to the onset of the problem. If it is possible to report every incident to the manager, then countermeasures can be taken to prevent the problem, as applied in Hinrichi's law. However, these incidents are not reported, so managers cannot take preventive action. In this paper, focus is placed on the prevention of unintended errors caused by workers. Cause of disturbing three step process to help prevent undesired quality problems is investigated. The three steps are firstly, the worker notices an error or incident. Secondly, the worker reports the incident to the manager, and thirdly, the manager accepts the report. Based upon this investigation, a 2-phase workshop is proposed to pursue the mental change of workers, consisting of a first phase workshop to analyze the cause of the social accidents and a second phase workshop to analyze the cause of the problems that happened on the local manufacturing line.
After the workshop,the number of incident reports from workers had increased,the management issues also increased, resulting in management action taken to solve the issues.

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