Transcripts

Japan Takes The Assembly Line To The Next Level

LINDA O`BRYON: Well, Paul, Toyota`s system of lean manufacturing, low cost and high-quality production, has become the Holy Grail for factories worldwide. But one Japanese company has reaped stunning results by adopting an extreme form of the so-called cell system of production and flouting the conventional wisdom about achieving economies of scale. Lucy Craft reports.

LUCY CRAFT, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRRESPONDENT: You don`t get much further from the modern mass assembly line, than this. Each of the 140 women on this floor essentially runs a self-contained factory of her own, building an entire product from start to finish. The plant has a leisurely mood. It`s as if each worker were assembling her own model airplane. No production quotas, no docked pay for mistakes, no time clock to beat, supervisors who gently praise, instead of nag or criticize and not a single instruction manual. Instead, a computer screen gently guides workers through the hundreds of steps and thousands of parts that go into a commercial printer. On cue, a carousel swivels so that it`s impossible to grab the wrong fastener. Sensors make sure the proper power tool is used and that no screw is left unturned. The system is so user-friendly, it has cut training time down to almost nil.

TRANSLATION OF: WORKER ROLAND DG: At first it was hard making something by myself, but by the fifth time, I got used to working at my own pace. It`s fun.

CRAFT: Mini-factories seem to work best when products are labor- intensive, come in many models and are made in small lots. Yet even Toyota has joined the hundreds of companies trooping here each year for a closer look. This system is so foolproof that literally anyone can walk off the street and assemble a printer, even me. First, we see here that I need a 2.0 screwdriver which is this one and I need a bunch of screws. I need four, but I`ll take a little bit extra. It doesn`t matter because the system will tell me exactly how much I need to be using and according to the diagram, I`m supposed to insert the screw here. It`s that easy.

TRANSLATION OF: SHINICHI SEKI, GENERAL MANAGER PRODUCTION, ROLAND DG: People are not robots. Any work that can be performed by robots, we give to robots. These workers are doing jobs only human hands can do. So, of course we have to take good care of them.

CRAFT: It wasn`t always a love fest at Roland DG. In fact, just a few years ago, assembly workers were branded as careless and lazy, blamed for an epidemic of defects. But the real culprits, the company decided, were convoluted instruction manuals and a workplace routine so numbingly tedious that it seemed designed to manufacture failure.

SELI: In Japan, line manufacturing demands that everyone perform at the same level of competence. It`s like expecting everyone to be a Tiger Woods. That`s unrealistic. People vary in physical strength, technical acumen and experience. We don`t want everyone to be a Tiger Woods. We just want everyone to love playing golf.

CRAFT: So far Roland DG keeps hitting a hole-in-one. Defects are history and sales are soaring. This fiscal year, sales are forecast to more than double over 2002, when the factory was overhauled, to $230 million. Profits for the same period set to jump more than five-fold. Japan is facing a skilled labor shortage. In the future, in order to get and keep the best workers, Japanese companies will be forced to adopt measures like these mini-factories within a factory, where pampering workers is just good business sense. Lucy Craft, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Hamatsu City, Japan.