As is represented by the world's top-level Japanese automotive
manufacturers, Japanese manufacturers have been climbing to winning
positions in global businesses. The driving force of their success
includes responsiveness to diversifying market needs and elevating
quality requirements, clarification of development concepts that
facilitate new technology, application of technology to product planning
and design, advanced production control systems that elaborately utilize
state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies, and flexible, efficient
production. Many Japanese manufacturers succeeded in fulfilling these
factors mainly because they utilize Japanese-style Lean Production
Systems or the so-called Toyota Production System (TPS) and
Japanese-style, scientific quality management approaches such as
Statistical Quality Control (SQC) and Total Quality Management (TQM) in
order to improve their corporate management technology. As severe
competition among manufacturers intensify both in Japan and overseas,
action against quality problems that remarkably diminish customer
satisfaction, and customer-first quality management, is becoming
important. Scientific quality control methods that aim to optimize
production processes for building in quality were undermined by the past
expansion of quantity-oriented manufacturing through automation with
massive and heavy equipment.
