Remade in America Transplanting and Transforming Japanese Management Systems

Over the last two decades, Japanese firms have challenged U.S. dominance in many manufacturing industries. This challenge has increasingly come in the form of transplant operations, and recognition has spread that their success owes a great deal to superior manufacturing management. Despite the ups and downs of the business cycle in Japan, there remains a core of world-class Japanese companies that have developed manufacturing management systems that companies throughout the world strive to emulate. In this edited volume, a team of eminent scholars uses case studies and large-scale surveys to explain in depth the process of transferring and transforming the best Japanese Management Systems (JMS) by both Japanese- and U.S.-owned firms. While the most successful of the Japanese manufacturing transplants rely, to varying degrees, on home country management techniques, they have had to adapt them to fit U.S. conditions. Similarly, the growing number of U.S. firms that are adopting these techniques to strengthen their own positions face a considerable challenge in transforming them to fit local conditions. A new environment necessarily compels the transformation of JMS. But despite the hurdles firms face, the evidence presented here and elsewhere strongly indicates that key aspects of JMS are remarkably transferable and successful in the United States. Combining scientific data with clear and engaging prose, Remade in America is a rich analytical resource for manufacturing professionals, as well as scholars and students of management and business.

Jeffrey Liker is Associate Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan.
Mark Fruin is Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at Keio University and Visiting Professor of Corporate Strategy and Technology Management in the College of Business at San Jose State University.
Paul Adler is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Southern California.