Management and labour in Japanese steel works

The new production system, with its comprehensive on-line information technology, ushered in various changes in the make-up of management and labour at works level. The idea of workplace management was originally introduced from the United States in the 1950s as part of a productivity movement in Japan ¹ and during the modernisation process was modified and developed into the system we see today. Workplace management under the new production system is an integral part of the whole corporate management system, which is under head office control. Much of the analysis which follows is relevant to the proposed conceptual framework of relative ‘advance’ and ‘convergence’.