Notes from Toyota-land: An American Engineer in Japan 9781501728792

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NOTES FROM TOYOTA-LAND

@ DARIUS MEHRI FOREWORD BY ROBERT PERRUCCI ILR PRESS AN IMPRINT OF

COR NELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright© 2005 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2005 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Design by Scott Levine Author photograph by John Woo. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mehri, Darius. Notes from Toyota-land: an American engineer in Japan I Darius Mehri. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-4289-6 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8014-4289-3 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Automobile industry and trade-Japan-Management. 2. Work environment-Japan. 3. Industrial relations-Japan. 4. Corporate culture-Japan. 5. Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha-Management. 6. Mehri, Darius-Travel-Japan. I. Title. HD9710.J32M43 2005 338.7'6292'0952-dc22 2005011566 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing

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CONTENTS

Foreword

ix

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgments

xvi i

Introduction

1

First Year

12

Second Year

82

Third Year

162

Character List

213

Organizational Chart of Company Hierarchy

217

Glossary

219

References

221

Index

225

FOREWORD

In 1990 I was conducting research on Japanese automobile plants that had recently been built in six Midwestern states ("the transplants"). Japanese corporations invested billions of dollars to build the plants, and the six states combined provided about one billion dollars in incentives to attract the transplants to their states. Because Japanese auto plants in Japan were believed to have a distinctive organizational approach ("lean production"), one of my research objectives was to see how they would transfer their work arrangements ("teams") and work processes ("continuous improvement") into the American setting. I wanted to study how the Japanese companies were training American production supervisors to implement lean production methods. With the help of a university vice-president who had a liaison role with the local transplant, I was able to meet with the CEO of the transplant to present my research proposal. The meeting was held in a company conference room with me and my university sponsor on one side of a long table, and on the other side, the Japanese CEO, a Japanese vice-president for production, an American vice-president for human resources, and two Japanese secretaries who took notes during the meeting. After polite introductions and exchange of business cards, I was asked to make my presentation. I spoke for about twenty minutes, outlining a two-part project that involved first studying the transplant's training program for American team leaders, and second a survey of American production workers ("associates") concerning their reactions to team leaders after start-up of production. When I finished, I thanked everyone for the opportunity to present my proposal. All attention

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FOREWORD

turned to the CEO who sat opposite me. He spoke: "Thank you for your interesting proposal. Now tell me, how do you feel about labor unions?" I was taken aback by this unexpected question and immediately suspected that he had made inquiries into my politics and my pro-labor sympathies. I proceeded to describe the role played by organized labor in improving working conditions in the twentieth century, and I acknowledged labor's contributions to our economy. I closed my reply to the CEO by reassuring him that my research has nothing to do with unionization, and if his workers unionized it would have more do with him than me. The CEO stood up, thanked me, and said they would soon respond to my proposal. When we left the meeting, my university sponsor said that my closing remarks were not helpful. He said that I was "too direct." A week later the transplant VP of Human Resources informed me that the company decided not to approve my request to study their training program. Darius Mehri's memoir is a rare account of an insider's view of working in an automobile company in Japan. If I had access in 1990 to his detailed description of everyday work-life in Japan, I would have responded to the Japanese CEO's query about unions with the knowledge of Mehri's description of the subordinate and ineffective role of Japanese company unions. I would also have framed my reply to the CEO within the context of tatemae ("what you are supposed to feel or do") and not honne ("what you actually feel or do"). Mehri provides an absorbing detailed account of working and living in Japan. His memoir has the feel of exceedingly rich and detailed field notes provided by an experienced ethnographer. Students of Japanese organizations and work patterns will be provided with rich day-to-day descriptions of the abstract concepts that are used to characterize the Japanese approach to work and organizing. Readers will come to recognize kaizen as something more than "continuous improvement" and will learn what Japanese professional employees think about "lean production," and how under the guise of "teamwork" and the importance of the work group, Mehri and his colleagues are subjected to great work intensity and pressure to produce. We also get a first-hand look at how the office without walls, which is supposed to symbolize equality, is used to provide markers for who is on the way up and who is on the way out. In Mehri's third year at Toyota an economic downturn leads the company to begin downsizing. The Japanese approach to this unpleasant task differs from the American experience, and reveals the way that the "family" of com-

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panies (the keiretsu) is used to buffer job loss. The efforts to use voluntary means to downsize ("who wants to take a challenge leave?") and shared wage reductions also provide interesting contrasts to the two-week notice in the

u.s.

In addition to the informative accounts of what it is like to work at Toyota, the memoir also provides a picture of Japanese life that extends beyond the workplace while still intimately connected to the workplace. The descriptions of after-work drinking and eating sessions are amusing and revealing; Japanese dating and gender relations, viewed through the eyes of a foreigner, provide interesting contrasts with the American experience; and the family life of salary-men provides an image of the how the long arm of the job reaches into all segments of daily life. ROBERT PERRUCCI

Purdue University

PREFACE

This book is a memoir about my life in Japan, where I worked from April 1996 through June 1999 as a computer simulation engineer at a Toyota automobile company. Every night, alone in my tiny company apartment, I recorded the day's events. What began as the usual expatriate journal became something more complex when the Japanese economy, in trouble since 1990, took a drastic downturn in 1997. Then I saw Japan's management systemhighly touted and imitated in the United States and elsewhere-placed under desperate stress. My entries recorded group dynamics, health and safety issues, gender relations, restructuring, and the company involvement in local elections. My vantage point was unusual. Many observers have written books about new management methods in the office, in the Japanese factory, and in the so-called transplants (Japanese factories located in the United States), but until now no American engineer has described the Japanese white-collar experience. I was able to experience the 1997 recession and the company's response to it from several perspectives. I worked with Japanese engineers on product design teams, and I was fortunate to be included in their drinking parties and other social occasions. But as a foreign worker, I also had many friends among foreigners on the assembly line. I learned from them about the hazards of lean production in the factory, particularly as line speeds increased during the economic downturn. I also learned how management coped with the economic emergency by using foreign workers and by outsourcing within the Toyota conglomerate.

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My journal soon became a record of the company's culture and its managerial adaptations during the economic downturn. Later in my stay, I became absorbed by the company's close involvement in a local election, and the activists I met during that campaign taught me how business affects politics in Japan. This topic is not well enough understood in the West. The company that I worked for is called Nizumi in this book, and while descriptions of people and processes are drawn from my journal and from interviews, I have changed names and certain nonessential details to respect the privacy of my former colleagues and the proprietary nature of my engineering work for Nizumi. Nizumi is an upper-level Toyota group company. It employs more than seven thousand workers, maintains more than five offices and factories throughout Japan, and its 2002 sales were over $5 billion. It also maintains a number of sales offices and factories in foreign countries. Nizumi is an original manufacturer of products for Japanese and foreign markets and has its own distribution network. The company also supplies parts for Toyota Motors, and like most companies within the Toyota industrial pyramid (the keiretsu), it relies on connections with Toyota to maintain and expand its market share. Although Nizumi is an independent company, it has been an official Toyota keiretsu affiliate for several years, and as a result has adopted the Toyota style of management. Nizumi workers have been thoroughly immersed in the various practices of the Toyota Production System (TPS), such as just-in-time and pull manufacturing, which I will discuss later. To maintain control over its companies and to ensure implementation of the TPS, Toyota manages the daily activities ofNizumi through Nizumi's top managers, president, and board of directors, many of whom come directly from Toyota. The enterprise unions are another organ of control, and the whole system has surprising connections with the political system at various levels. The complexities of this total system are not evident at first, and this book is both a description of the system and an account of how it revealed itself to me and my colleagues. I worked with other computer simulation engineers like myself, and we all worked alongside CAD (Computer Animated Design) engineers, scientists, and technicians with a variety of educational backgrounds. Many had college degrees, but some did not. A few had Ph.D.s, but some had entered the company directly after high school or with a two-year degree from a tech-

PREFACE

nical college. Some were temporary, contract workers, but most were fulltime regular employees of the company. What I enjoyed most about my job was that I was doing sophisticated engineering design. My job as a computer simulation engineer in the analysis department for advanced design involved cutting-edge technology, and I felt I was making meaningful contributions to improving vehicle efficiency. I also enjoyed starting to understand Japan. When you work in a foreign country, you become immersed in its society. Every day when I came to work in the morning, filled my ceramic cup with coffee, and walked over to talk with my boss, I knew I would soon be learning something new about Japanese society and the famous Toyota Production System. I took every opportunity to learn and record as much as I could. By the time I left Japan, my journal amounted to more than 250 single-spaced pages. I documented every detail so that I could create a full picture of what life was like at the company. People who work in Japan and write about the culture often go through three phases: experiencing Japan as an alien environment, "going native;' and finally becoming more critical. These shifts were especially pronounced in my case because the economic recession put the contradictions and tensions of the system into high relief, both for foreign workers like me and for my Japanese colleagues. My Japanese colleagues often talked to me about a distinction which is fundamental to understanding Japanese culture and business: tatemae (what you are supposed to feel or do) and honne (what you actually feel or do). Imagine getting a haircut in Japan. When the barber begins cutting, you notice he is making many mistakes. When he is finished, your hair looks terrible. Yet when the barber asks "How is the haircut?" you respond, "It looks great:' You refrain from criticizing or confronting the barber because it is bad behavior in Japan to embarrass someone in public. You leave the barbershop and swear you will never return again. In this case the tatemae was your response that the hair "looks great" when in fact your true feeling, the honne, is that you are furious because it looks awful. In Japan, if two employees disagree with each other, it is considered bad behavior to be confrontational. You are supposed to fake a good-natured relationship and not show your true feelings. In my interviews with workers, I would often inquire about the management's behavior and in case after case,

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PREFACE tatemae and honne were used to explain company policy. The company's policies were tatemae, and the underlying realities were honne. As a foreigner I was challenged by the inherent tatemae/honne contradiction, but I believe that the Japanese experience both the tatemae and the honne simultaneously and without hypocrisy. Japanese workers who had spent some time working abroad, however, seemed almost as baffled as I was about the complex levels of meaning in the culture they were rejoining. I believe that international enthusiasm for the Toyota Production System results from Western observers' failure to discern the honne within the tatemae. It has been easy (but erroneous) to accept the tatemae as given, and to write about it without regard to the Japanese realities or to any possible losses in translation. But tatemae, honne, and other phenomena of the Japanese workplace release their meanings only to observers who spend time in the culture. This book is the story of my time in Japan and the gradual understanding I acquired there. What emerges is a detailed account of the Toyota Production System and contemporary life at a Japanese car manufacturing company.

ACI