Monozukuri — Making Things

The three key determinants shaping the Japanese economy and the LME within it discussed in Chapter 8 can be lodged within the realm of the ‘samurai’. It was the upper echelons of the national hierarchy who determined the absolute necessity of redemption and restitution, now to be realized through the avenues of economic progress. It was the central bureaucracy which shouldered the responsibility for arbitraging with global institutions to mitigate as much as possible the repercussions of demanding external forces, while at the same time devising measures to reinforce the economy and the component organizations within it in readiness for what was to come. But there is another determinant, and its essence resides with the ‘artisan’. It is monozukuri, or making things. Monozukuri purportedly implies for the Japanese something which is commonly and uniquely shared and mutually understood. In their eyes monozukuri acquires a particular essence which is quintessentially Japanese, just like their home-grown glutinous rice, whose sanctity renders price all but irrelevant. In its pure form the monozukuri mentality puts the making of things first; this is where the heart of the attention and concentration of the enterprise lies. Its indispensable stakeholder is the creator-engineer, the artisan. Ignore the artisan and you ignore monozukuri and how it is embedded in the firm as the fundamental driver of production.