The Mother Plant in Japan and Its Transplant in the United States

Utilizing similar automatic transfer machine systems and similar parts to manufacture the same standard type of car component, productivity at the Japanese mother plant remained higher by 10 % than that at the U.S. transplant in the early 2010s. Japanese manufacturing engineers at the headquarters and the mother plant developed ways to introduce more efficient automatic transfer machine systems into the mother plant in 2002. In 2003, the transfer machine systems were modified in order to be introduced at the U.S. transplant. To respond to the new transfer machine systems, the assistant first-line supervisors at the mother plant had the production workers acquire some electrical troubleshooting skills in addition to mechanical troubleshooting skills, based on trusting relationships with production workers. At the U.S. transplant, however, production workers’ skills were separated from troubleshooting skills. The U.S. transplant introduced new production expert positions to provide troubleshooting in 1999. However, exercising the right to choice concerning transfers that they had via a seniority-based job-bid system, some of the production experts moved to higher wage maintenance jobs. Although manufacturing engineers at the U.S. transplant participated in modifying new automatic transfer machine systems employing advanced technology, the American manufacturing engineers played more partial roles than did their Japanese counterparts at the mother plant.