Functional and operational differences in the decision making process for manufacturing in Japan and in America

The author describes his point of view-developed from over eight years of visiting Japan and Japanese manufacturing plants, including three years of actually living in Japan-on differences in the decision-making process for manufacturing in Japan and the US. It is pointed out that in the American system everyone has a specific area of responsibility and the plant manager is ultimately responsible when machines break. In the Japanese fab, the person operating the machine is specifically responsible for output and knows how to achieve that output. The machine keeper is responsible for everything on the machine: from routine cleaning and loading of material to sophisticated PMs and tough fix-it issues when machines actually break.<>