The paper will address the premises of current Industrial Cluster Plans, that is, cluster specialization, and their accompanying risks to point out the necessity of diversification in industrial agglomeration, including local-market industry.
The case of Birmingham shows how the region lost its competitiveness owing to the current specialized agglomeration of automotive industry even though the region used to have a diversified engineering agglomeration. The government's unsuccessful industrial policy and the region's deep dependency on inward investment so far have accelerated the decline of manufacturing in Britain as a whole. International or regional competitiveness alone cannot dissolve the instability of regional economy caused by contemporary rapid globalization. Regional development that depends on outside investment shows little long-term future, since capital moves freely between regions.
Diversity in industrial agglomeration should include local industries, which balance the globalizing export industries. The industrial cluster plan in Birmingham, although reflecting in some ways a comprehensive regional economy, resembles a high-tech-oriented one seen in many other regions. Regional industrial policy should be designed more comprehensively in Japan too, taking into account the costs and risks involved in this strategy.

抄録全体を表示

Recently, under the pressure to change into a knowledge-based economy, development countries have become interested in a regional innovation system and an industrial cluster as mother of innovation.
While referring to five regions in North European countries whose economy has successfully changed to a knowledge-based economy and to the earlier studies, in this paper, necessary and sufficient conditions for upgrading existing clusters to one of high-technology and an effective functioning of regional innovation systems were examined.
In upgrading existing clusters, preparation of following necessary conditions is first required:
(1) Strong recognition of local industry, academia and government, the necessity to change into a knowledge economy in order to activate regional economy, and the need to act toward the same goal.
(2) Selection and concentration to clusters in which local resources can be harnessed.
(3) Enrichment of innovation infrastructure. Local universities should develop talented people and conduct a research required to upgrade clusters. And forums should be established where people from industrial sectors and academia, gather and discuss.
(4) Popularization of venture culture.
(5) Enrichment of incubation infrastructure.
Regional innovation systems, however, will not function effectively by simply arranging these necessary conditions. In order for a regional innovation system to function effectively, strategically, there needs to be a conscious competition between clusters; the differentiation of the content of clusters; the development of forum for a knowledge production (mode 2); and the formation of a regional brand.
From these strategies, outstanding firms and personnel will gather from abroad and clusters will become fertile, and as a result, innovation and incubation power will strengthen.
For this, it is necessary to define the governance of cluster and prepare the implementation unit. Grading and ranking functions are also useful for stimulation of competition between clusters and for promotion of effective functioning of regional innovation system.

抄録全体を表示

Industrial agglomerations and the relationship between regional economies and small and medium-sized enterprises have been drawing increasingly keen attention as research subjects in recent years. There is an array of reasons why studies on industrial agglomeration and regional economies have come into the spotlight. These include the following. (1) Various problems having been caused by the 20th century production system of mass production and mass consumption, (i. e., Fordism), the academic search for an alternative production system is under way. “Flexible specialization, ” an organic, yet flexible system of the division of labor among specialized small businesses, is one possible solution that has been presented. (2) From the standpoint of policy development, many regional economies in Japan, though not all, have been considerably battered since the collapse of the bubble economy, and there is a call for studies which address this issue. At present, Japanese industry, academia and government are rallying a great amount of expertise to cope with this problem.
It is good for the advancement of learning that many researchers take an interest in this issue and enter the field of industrial agglomeration and regional economy research. However, we also have a situation where the subjects and targets of study have not been sufficiently defined, with many researchers of varied academic backgrounds abruptly converging on this issue and seeking hasty solutions to problems without fully examining the accumulation of past research or logically defining the problems and ideas involved.
This paper focuses on the history of government policies developed by the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the present Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) concerning regional industries and small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the policy measures presently in place. It further attempts to present a few points for discussion on these policies in order to highlight the issues that need to be addressed.

抄録全体を表示

In this paper, I analyze the reciprocal relations between quality control and automation of production in the Japanese semiconductor industry, or IC industry, from 1960's until early 1980's. Previous studies on the Japanese semiconductor industry have not focused on this issue. Therefore, I interviewed engineers sepecialized in quality control of four Japanese semiconductor firms, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi, focusing on the relations between quality control and automation of production.
Because variation of quality among chips became smaller by automation of production, quality control could be carried out more easily, compared with that before automation. However, automation of production made new problems in quality control. For example, severe controls on operations of automation machines and extreme prevention of inferior chips were required. And some production processes in which the rate of inferior chips were higher had to be checked more frequently, including selection of materials for chips.
In corporate structure, engineers executing quality control were independent of engineers executing automation of production. Moreover, engineers executing quality control have the poor knowledges of machines of automation. For these reasons, they could not play parts in automation of production actively.
But, all routes on which they might influence automation of production were not blocked. That is, engineers executing quality control finally decided whether production lines of automation continually, based on quality of chips manufactured for trial in that production line. In this respect, engineers executing quality control were playing a large part in automation of production. And heated dispute between engineers executing quality control and those executing automation of production raised the performance of automation.

抄録全体を表示

After the declaration of “New Management” in Frankfurt Germany, 1993, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. changed its management policy from quantitative expansion to search of quality, and it has got over with the Asian economic crisis in 1997 by setting the inter-group-organization having the authority of “structural reform headquarters” to accelerate the screening and concentration of its businesses.
Since then, Samsung Electronics has been carrying out “prepared management” with a further outlook than other operators, such as holding up the vision of “leading a digital convergence revolution”, having a mission of “withdrawal, if we cannot go into the best 5 of the world within five years”, and dividing its domain into 4. Since device business is not only high-risk but also high-return, Samsung Electronics is trying to minimize the risk by analyze the market thoroughly, depriving the market share of the leading mobile phone manufacturers, and digital media and appliance departments are stabilizing their grounds steadily. In addition, Samsung has been restructuring its business portfolio on a daily basis, and continuing a business process innovation.
In the background that a large number of world top level goods were produced, such as semiconductor memories, there was an excellent management strategy of Mr. Lee Kun-Hee, chairman of Samsung Electronics. A thorough talented-personnel strategy was implemented under the following policy: “one excellently talented person can feed 100, 000 people.” In the company, personnel affairs mean not only the activities of taking in talented people of the very first rank, but also the means of keeping them inside.
The talented-personnel strategy of Samsung Electronics equates with thorough top-downmilitary-management, and the company considers that what is necessary to maintain its inhouse order by acquiring and retaining the first-class personnel are to keep its high growth and profit rate and to continue the educational investment which meets the opportunity-equal spirit.
The reason the company has grown up to be a high profit company turned out the singularity of its personnel strategy.

抄録全体を表示

The purpose of this study is to explore (1)what the technological modularity driver is and (2) what organizational capability is needed in modularization in the auto industry. To be concrete, this study proposes that the material innovation is an important kind of technological modularity driver in modularization to make up functional module. As a result, the integration of components by plastics has effects on weight reduction, cost reduction, downsizing, and promotes vehicle mechanical re-design and commonization effect. And, in organizational capability, it is important for an auto maker to search-evaluation capability for supplier's capability dispersed in a supplier system. Then, as a modular supplier, it should be required the absorption capacity that is the evaluation of quality, cost information, related component knowledge and vehicle structure knowledge. That is to say, as modular supplier, the integration capability that integrates and re-design components in module should have become important.
In this research, we introduced a case study of Mazda, the modular strategy of Mazda shifts from sub-assembly module assembled a large chunk to functional module integrated functions of components. In this process of modularization, the important technological driver in modularization is material innovation using plastic and incremental production engineering innovation being participated suppliers, outer resources.
This result shows that auto maker should have become important building the search-evaluation capability which strategically evaluates the level of component knowledge of suppliers and analyzes its availability for modularization as the integration process of knowledge.

抄録全体を表示

In this paper, based on the dealings data of a company level, for 25 years from 1973 to 1998, we verify quantitatively the historical change of suppliers' dealings structure in Japanese automobile industry. Consequently, we find that the tendency which suppliers increased the number of customers (automobile manufactures) and lowered the dependence to a main customer is seen from the at least 1970s. However, from 1992, although Nissan's ‘Keiretsu’ suppliers kept this trend succeedingly, Toyota's ‘Keiretsu’ suppliers showed a reverse motion. And so, as the whole, a leveling-off tendency was seen in this period.

抄録全体を表示

The OEM/ODM in the PC industry between the multinationals in the developed countries and Taiwanese companies began in the late 1980s and has boosted in early 1990s.
The reasons why multinationals began to choose the outsourcing such as OEM/ODM were the improved modularization of the architecture of the PC, the world-wide price war, the shortened life cycle, and the increased pressure to maximize the stock value. This outsourcing was on the wave of the so-called global production network.
Through OEM/ODM, the codified technology has obviously been transferred. But the tacit technology, such as the knack for avoiding bugs in designing circuit or the know-how in the quality control which have been accumulated in the multinationals under the experience of providing products in the world market, has also been transferred. Since the latter is the technology which is embodied in a person or an organization, the closed human contact is indispensable in order to transfer them. But, the contact between engineers is so close in the OEM/ODM that the embodied technology can also be transferred smoothly.
The transferred technology was not stagnant within the concerned company. It has diffused through the mechanisms which are unique to Taiwan: the horizontal network among the small and medium sized companies, the flexible labor market, and the lively entrepreneurship. Thus the diffusion of the transferred technology has raised the technical level of the whole PC industry in Taiwan.
With the above-mentioned technology transfer from the multinationals, Taiwan has become capable to produce the product which is acceptable in the mature market of the developed countries.

抄録全体を表示

Several years have passed since the hollowing of Japanese manufacturing industry drew attention from the people concerned. Among other things, the decline of manufacturing in Osaka is remarkable. This paper deals with the present situation and the challenges of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises located in Higashi-Osaka City, which is known as one of the typical industrial centers of Osaka, as well as the overseas production as one of the ways for them to survive.
In the first half of the paper, analysis is made about the changes in the industrial structure of Osaka with Higashi-Osaka City as a center, based on the past ten year statistical data. The latter half tries to understand the realities of manufacturing industries in the area, through the interviews with some of the business leaders of the small and medium-sized companies of Higashi-Osaka City.
1. Ten Year Review of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Industries in Higashi-Osaka City
As major electronics manufacturers transferred a number of their factories to foreign countries, and the import of products made in China and other countries increased, the number of manufacturers in the area decreased by 23%. The employee population came down further than the reduction in the number of manufacturers. The reduction in manufactured goods shipments in terms of value is even greater, with the value added diminishing by 39%. As there are more small cottage industries in Higashi-Osaka City than in other areas, the influence is more adversely felt.
2. Ways of Survival As Seen in Some Exemplary Cases
On the average, the situation is getting in an unfavorable direction. However, there are numerous companies working competitively. Under the circumstances which are varied from company to company, those small and medium-sized manufacturers doing well have the following common features:
1. The management has a managerial capability.
2. They have technologies and products unique to them, and their market share is large, although the market is not so large.
3. There are some companies who closed their factories in Japan and went abroad for production. Their decision to start overseas production is beginning to bear fruit.
Closing Remark:
Although the situation is different from company to company, special mention should be made about the persistency and zeal of business founders in carrying out business operations, which is far different from the managers who were promoted from among the employees.

抄録全体を表示