Summary

Combining case studies with accessible but rigorous production models and historical background, this provocative book challenges accepted views on Japanese production methods in the world car industry.

The book argues that the 'lean and flexible' production model popularly associated with Toyota MC is a myth, but one which sheds light on cultural responses to the attendant stresses of globalization. To illustrate this, Dan Coffey provides individual studies of process flexibility, labour productivity and the re-organization of work in the global car industry. Wider evaluations of Japanese impacts on the global economy and a resurgent Western capitalism are then made, progressing the case for a fundamental re-assessment of the narratives informing popular accounts of Japan's manufacturing success. Beginning with the fictionalization of history and propagation of empirical counterfactuals and finishing with observations on the wider impact of the 'lean and flexible' approach, the bold and controversial conclusion reacheld by the author is that what is at stake is our understanding of the form and meaning of 'production fantasy'.

The Myth of Japanese Efficiency casts a familiar debate in an unfamiliar light. It will strongly appeal to management and business strategy academics, political economists and industrial sociologists interested in the debate on Fordist versus 'post-Fordist' production methods/'lean and flexible' manufacture and Japanese post-war success in the world market for manufactured goods. Human resource management specialists interested in best production practice will also find much to interest them within this book.

Choice Review

This book is intended as a sustained critique of the "myth of Japanese efficiency" in the automobile industry. Unfortunately, it covers no new ground. Coffey's analyses of actual Japanese manufacturing processes are distorted and slim. He incorrectly concludes that Japanese producers are inflexible because of their limited model variations. He disagrees with mainstream interpretations of lean production but fails to fully comprehend the real "secret" of lean production (amply discussed in the critical literature: the ability to significantly increase the intensity of work on the shop floor). Much of the book is devoted to criticizing how the myth developed and propagated, especially as a result of works by James Womack et al. Because no serious student of the Japanese system gives much credence to these works, the fact that Coffey (Leeds Univ., UK) devotes so much space to attacking them is a mystery. The most significant weakness of the book, however, is what it omits. After "mercilessly" attacking the myth, Coffey neither confronts nor explains the one stark reality that has, more than any book or article, supported it: the continued success of Toyota, the most profitable manufacturing company in the world. Summing Up: Optional. Only comprehensive academic and research collections on Japanese manufacturing methods and the auto industry. C. H. A. Dassbach Michigan Technological University