1 Chapter 3 a NEW TOYOTAISM? Koïchi Shimizu
1 Chapter 3 A NEW TOYOTAISM? Koïchi Shimizu In Freyssenet M., Mair A., Shimizu K., Volpato G. (eds), One Best Way? Trajectories and Industrial Models of the World's Automobile Producers , New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, 476 p. Toyota introduced innovations in industrial organization and labour force management throughout the 1950s and 1960s. By the early 1970s these innovations had evolved into the coherent and successful 'Toyota Production System' (TPS). Prior to the first oil crisis, the system was mainly geared towards mass production. The company had to find creative solutions in order to diversify its product range and make its production process more flexible during the turbulent 1970s. Emerging strengthened from these trials, Toyota revealed its capacity to achieve even higher performance levels during the 1980s. The company's success led numerous managers, observers and researchers to consider that its system had become the new best industrial model which all companies ought to adopt (Womack, Jones and Roos 1990). Yet by the end of the 1980s, at the very point at which it was being promoted as the industrial model for the twenty-first century, the system was encountering difficulties at Toyota itself. Toyota was having to modify its production organization to make work more attractive and humane. Its share of the Japanese market was declining, and it was suffering the adverse consequences of trade conflicts between Japan and several other countries. 3.1. THE TOYOTA MODEL BEFORE THE FIRST OIL CRISIS In 1973, Toyota had four assembly factories. Honsha had been constructed in 1948, Motomachi in 1959, Takaoka in 1966 and Tsutsumi in 1970.
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