Introduction

With extensive data and field observations from one Japanese car component firm which has been recognized as one of the best practice manufacturing firms, this book analyzes how production workplaces at the mother plant of this firm in Japan and its three transplants in the United States, Thailand, and China underwent change from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. Additionally, differences among the mother plant and the three transplants, and the reasons for the differences, are examined. Productivity and work practices, specifically production workers’ skills, assistant first-line supervisors’ control, and manufacturing engineers’ roles in assembly processes are focused on. The role and importance of each employee’s individual choices is developed as the analytic concept informing this book. Although the Thai and Chinese transplants had manufactured an older type of car component, the mother plant and the U.S., Thai, and Chinese transplants have manufactured the same standard type of car component since the mid-2000s. The mother plant and the U.S. transplant have utilized automatic transfer machine systems, whereas the Thai and Chinese transplants have used traditional assembly lines. Notably, production volume ratios of the car components at the Chinese and Thai transplants increased from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, while production volume ratios of the car components at the mother plant and the U.S. transplant decreased.