著者
沢井 実
出版者
経営史学会
雑誌
経営史学 (ISSN:03869113)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.54, no.3, pp.3-25, 2019 (Released:2021-12-30)

Before Japan became a major exporter of home appliances and automobiles, there was an age of light-machine production in the 1950s and 1960s that included items such as cameras, home sewing machines, binoculars, etc. There were three types of home sewing machine manufacturers in the 1950s: the integration type that manufactured arms, beds, and other parts of the sewing machines entirely in the plant; the assembling type that assembled outsourced parts into finished products; and the mixed type that both manufactured and assembled parts.Large companies such as Janome Sewing Machine, Riccar, and Brother Industries formed the integration type, while small- and medium-sized companies that were largely located in Osaka formed the assembling type. Large home sewing machine companies went through an era of rapid growth in the domestic market. The export of home sewing machines was led by the small businesses, i.e., the assembling manufacturers.However, the competition to dominate the U.S. market—led mainly by assembling manufacturers—was so harsh that the export prices decreased due to market forces. The MITI introduced the minimum export price system (the supposed check price) to respond to this situation. Japanese sewing machines manufactured by the assembling manufacturers were often called Karasu (crow) machines, because they were completely black and did have no brand labels. In 1954, in the wake of the depression after the Korean War, integration manufacturers started making an effort to export products. By the 1960s, the distinction between the large manufacturers of Tokyo and Nagoya in the domestic market and the small business of Osaka in the export market had collapsed. The situation was symbolized by Janome’s acquisition of Sanko Sewing Machine Co., a medium-sized manufacturer that began as an assembler in Osaka in October 1959.One advantage that large integration manufacturers possessed over assembling manufacturers was that they could establish their own sales networks in the U.S. market. For assembling manufacturers of Karasu home sewing machines, the sales network behind the U.S. distributors was a black box, while the large integration manufacturers tried to establish their own sales networks in the U.S. market.
著者
沢井 実
出版者
土地制度史学会(現 政治経済学・経済史学会)
雑誌
土地制度史学 (ISSN:04933567)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.25, no.1, pp.32-50, 1982-10-20 (Released:2017-11-30)

The purpose of this paper is to make clear the development of the Japanese machine tool industry from 1930 to 1937. The previous studies have pointed out the dependence on war production and the vulnerability of the machine tool industry as its characteristics. They have not done studies that analysed the market structure and the vulnerable production structure in connection with the increase of heavy industries. The rapid expansion of the market and the production of various types of machine tool capitals in response to it are, therefore, to be examined. In spite of the fact that the start of the expansion of the market in the 1930s was based on the increase of munitions industries, two demand groups sustained the expansion ever afterwards. Army and naval munitions works, automobiles, aircrafts, and big enterprises in the electrical equipment industry constituted one group which needed the diversification of high-grade machine tools. Another was industries relating to the export such as textile machinery, bicycles and the machine tool industry itself. Large, medium-scale builders and some local ones had mainly the former markets and they had developed in size by 1937 showing a technical progress. Growth of some local builders into the medium-scale ones made clear the stratification among the local capitals. Large-scale builders chose small equipment investment in comparison with the tempo of the increase of demand. Economic lessons from the long depression in the 1920s caused the negative investment. By means of the development of subcontracting and mass employment of low-wage workers, the large-scale builders tried to respond the market expansion. The increase of technical level in the large, medium-scale builders was gradual because of their supplementary relationships to imported machines; the core of plants occupied by the imported machines, the fringe by the domestic. The domestic machines, consequently, could not satisfy the demand in both quantity and quality, resulting in the rapid increase of the import. This was accelerated by the sale competition among the European and American builders, exporters who suffered from the depression in the world market. There were great many small-scale builders whose products remained to be very cheap, while the vulnerability of large, medium-scale builders and some local ones were newly actualized in the course of the development of heavy industries. Users for cheap machines were small and petty factories, not having had to be aware of low ability of using machines, that made machinery, instruments and its parts. The weight of small-scale builders in the total production value of machine tools was diminishing, although they were followed by the new entry.
著者
沢井 実
出版者
経営史学会
雑誌
経営史学 (ISSN:03869113)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.41, no.4, pp.35-40, 2007-03-25 (Released:2010-02-25)
被引用文献数
1 1