著者

信夫 千佳子

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学経済経営論集 (ISSN:02869721)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.57, no.4, pp.83-128, 2016-03-22

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Mazda Motor Corporation (referred as Mazda below) is an automotive company performing steady production activities with local suppliers in Hiroshima. Recently, Mazda's products and technologies have been highly appreciated, and obtained a number of awards. Although Mazda is not so rich in management resources compared to the leading car manufacturers, it has been performing continuous innovation, and improving product quality. In this paper, after introducing Mazda's company overview and history, production systems, innovation of development and production, some characteristics of the development-production systems are analyzed. Firstly, its development-production systems rigorously pursue economy of integration. The integration among departments by information technology realized company-wide information sharing, and enhanced quality and productivity. Concurrent engineering in collaboration with suppliers also enhanced them. Further, collaboration activities of development and production with other automotive manufacturers had strengthened advantages and reinforced weaknesses of each company. Secondly, Mazda's production system is lean.It has set basic principles to pursue `just-on-time' and `quality assurance in each process'. Additionally, it uses `sequence production system linked to order,' that is, if operators disturbs a sequence of operation, they have to stop the line, discover the problem, and make an improvement. The flexible production systems consisting lines with mixed-item production capability, as well as separate but homogeneous lines, support its lean production. Thirdly, Mazda has a solid foundation to generate new technology. Mazda 787B was the first Japanese car that achieved an overall victory at the 59th 24 heures du Mans endurance race in 1991. Mazda also succeeded in developing the first rotary engine in the world, which evolved to more advanced RENESIS engine in the 2000s, and it was highly praised both within Japan as well as abroad. SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY evolved from Mazda's base technology broke through the limitation of human and financial resources compared to much bigger competitors by selection and concentration. Fourthly, there is clear uniformity in its brand image. Since the brand message "Zoom-Zoom" and DNA of brand that is expressed as `stylish' `insightful' `spirited', are used for long time and well represent the characteristics of Mazda, they have contributed to establish a clear image of Mazda vehicles. The concept of `Soul of Motion' proposed in 2010 as design theme, is adopted for all the Mazda vehicles equipped SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY, and strengthened the unification of the design. Although there are still some challenges in development and production systems, it is concluded that Mazda's inter-organizational concurrent collaborations is a successful case for medium-sized automotive manufacturers.

著者

信夫 千佳子

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学経済経営論集 (ISSN:02869721)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, no.4, pp.39-68, 2009-03-10

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Japanese production systems seem to be developed in two dimensions, that is, autonomy and integration. Through increasing autonomy and integration, they have improved their adaptability and productivity. In 1990's and thereafter, cell production systems have been widely and increasingly introduced in Japanese electric, electronics, communication, computer, control machinery, and other industries. I proposed the definition of cell production systems as "production systems composed of several cells, each of which is a set of equipments and operators having some degree of freedom and autonomic ability, covering some part of the manufacturing process." As for autonomy, the main issues to be discussed here are: production pace control, quality control, operator training methods, and operator skill management under the circumstance of decreasing ratio of regular workers. As for integration, especially for the parallel production lines configuration, there are issues of equipment costs, material distribution, declining specialization, and decreasing adaptability. The integration issues also include: intra and inter cell management, as well as relations with each cell to the whole system. Finally, measures to solve these issues of autonomy and integration are discussed, based on the following three types of cell production systems. (1) The lean type of cell production systems For autonomy dimension, managers need to train operators to keep standard pace and quality, support them by information systems, and let them devote themselves to KAIZEN to solve productivity issues. For integration dimension, managers need to connect cells with suppliers for shorter lead time in the whole supply chain. (2) The skill type of cell production systems For both autonomy and integration issues, managers need to train operators for mastering higher level skills, or varied abilities to cover longer process steps. Managers must be able to properly evaluate operators' skills and abilities. (3) The business type of cell production systems For much higher levels of autonomy and integration, managers need to educate employees to master not only operational skills, but also technology, research and development, and management. Cell operators must be supported to smoothly coordinate relations among cells, and between cells and the whole systems.

著者

信夫 千佳子

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学経済経営論集 (ISSN:02869721)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.4, pp.335-376, 2014-03-28

著者

信夫 千佳子

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学総合研究所紀要 (ISSN:1346048X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.40, no.2, pp.29-65, 2015-01-30

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The Cell Production System with an autonomous and decentralized organization, has challenges on how each cell integrates itself with other cells as well as, on how it manages itself autonomously. In this system each cell manages their operations and transactions with other departments or outsourcing companies. As operators' technical abilities grew by advancing job enlargement and job enrichment, they became able to propose ideas to match customer's needs or wants. For this purpose, various education to enhance operators' technical abilities were conducted. In a model cell they sought solutions of the challenges by repeating trials and errors. In each cell, adaptability was not obstructed by limited knowledge and information that cell has, and operators autonomously challenged new KAIZEN. At that time computer technology that were being widely used, affected cell production system. Integration of a cell with other cells, with other departments, and with outsourcing companies, enhanced merits by direct transactions, while avoided demerits through clear division of works and coordination by the factory manager. Integration of factory operators was advanced furthermore by enhancing "visualization (implementation of visual control)" and by changing jobs of staff. In this factory employees noted again the principle of Toyota production systems that make excellent quality products at just-in-time. In the results they thought that this factory is better suited with "push system" and "hybrid system" rather than "pull system" of production. Concerning production lot, they made use of period lots for production to order. Concerning the number of operators and equipments they prepared capacity buffer for working flexibly. In this factory the trust relationship between top management and factory manager, factory manager and operators, gave good effects for the integration of cell production systems. In this way cell production systems of the case were constructed on the foundation of lean production systems. It seems that for a factory without any foundations of lean production system, it is difficult to construct these cell production systems as this factory developed.

著者

信夫 千佳子

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学経済経営論集 (ISSN:02869721)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.56, no.4, pp.187-242, 2015-03-31

著者

信夫 千佳子

出版者

追手門学院大学

雑誌

追手門経営論集 (ISSN:13418726)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.10, no.1, pp.15-37, 2004-06-25