Editorial

Citation

Bennett, D. (2006), "Editorial", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 17 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmtm.2006.06817eaa.001

Editorial

What is manufacturing? This seems to be a simple question with an apparently obvious answer. At one time it would just be associated with factories; with machines cutting and bending metal, or moulding plastic, and with the assembly of products. More recent notions of manufacturing would probably also invoke images of mass production of consumer goods under industrial conditions. But it is widely accepted that this is a very limited view of manufacturing and a more modern definition is needed that better embraces all aspects of the goods production lifecycle, from conceptual design to termination and renewal of the materials transformation systems. Some commentators would also argue that “manufacturing” now goes beyond the production of physical goods and also includes delivery of some services, especially where logistics and distribution are involved.

Against this background finding a new definition, and maybe even a new word, for manufacturing has become the subject of much debate among various meetings of professional groups that I have attended. However, despite the discussions there has never really been any common agreement about the matter. At the same time, it is still generally acknowledged that the current view of manufacturing is outdated, while its lack of glamour and narrow focus makes it unattractive to bright graduates.

Given this scenario I was, therefore, intrigued when I recently discovered the Japanese concept of “monodzukuri” about which very little is known in the West. There are few internet references in English that explain the concept and at the time of writing this editorial the academic literature search engine Google Scholare revealed no sources at all. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) says that in Japanese monodzukuri literally means “goods production”. However, it is not simply about manufacturing products. It is the art and the joy of making things as perfectly and efficiently as possible while respecting nature in terms of both the materials used and the environment. The concept is at the core of the notion of value creation, and should be positively applied to industries beyond manufacturing to enhance the competitiveness of Japanese industry as a whole.

	Conventional manufacturing paradigm	The monodzukuri paradigm
	Twentieth century type economic society	Twenty-first century type economic society
	Increase in resource consumption andlabour load	Decrease in resource consumption and labour load
	Mass production, mass disposal	Individualized production, less disposal
	Homogeneous organizations	Heterogeneous organizations
	Dependency	Independency
	Material resources	Human resources (knowledge, information)
	Global division of production by products	Optimal global allocation by functions
	Closed, hierarchical organizations (one-directional, pyramidal)	Open, flat organizations (two-directional, anti-pyramidal)

Table

METI provides the comparison shown in Table I between the key concepts between the manufacturing paradigm and the monodzukuri paradigm.

The monodzukuri paradigm generally places more emphasis on the value creation process and customer satisfaction becomes less dependent on material and labour resources. Takashi Omori of the Japanese Government Cabinet Office also says that monodzukuri represents a return to craft manufacturing and that firm is a place for creating new ideas and values through the integration of skill, technology and science.

It is clear from what I have found that monodzukuri goes well beyond the traditional idea of manufacturing and many progressive Japanese companies have embraced the concept in their strategies, so eventually I would expect to see it on academics' research agendas and reflected in the literature. Eventually, we may perhaps have an article on monodzukuri in this journal.

David Bennett