え～っと [e:to | jap. ‘let me see…’]

Radical Change of Japanese Business Architecture

July 23rd, 2005 at 02:41pm Alexander Müller

In the past decade, information and communication technologies (ICT) have become an elemental part of corporate structures. Reports of the OECD imply that the usage of ICT has contributed largely to higher factor productivity and economic growth (OECD, 2001). On the level of the corporation there is a similar enthusiasm concerning the effects of the new technology. However, the influences of ICT on the organizational structure are mostly viewed in a static way, thus neglecting their complex impact on the process organization. Especially the usage of standardized software, recently widely introduced under the marketing term ‘ERP’ (Enterprise Resource Planning), adds importance to this issue.

Many companies have decided to adopt a standardized software system. However, this standardization has several negative impacts. To be able to cope with the complexity of business reality, the software is often overloaded with functions which are not readily understood by the users of the system. A much bigger problem is the adjustment of the system to the organizations’s processes. Corporate standardized software offers many ways to adjust the software according to the business organization, this process is called ‘Customization’ . After several insuccesful projects with systems that have no longer been functional after heavy customization – for example Nike and its fiasco with a $400 million management system after it had heavily modified the software instead of adopting the business processes built into the application (see McAfee, 2003:85) – the approach of ‘bending’ the software to match the organization has lost much of its popularity.

Instead of changing the software to match the organization, alternatively the process organization of the company can be adjusted according to specifications of the software with ‘reference models’. In my research, the reference model of the SAP AG, the world market leader of corporate standardized software will be used as an example. The SAP reference model shows the business processes that are included in the SAP software package and contains around 800 relevant processes in graphical process diagrams, known as ‘event-driven process chains’ (called EPC; see Strobel-Vogt, 1999:81). These diagrams offer ideal processes for business workflows without being limited to certain industrial sectors or company size.

Japanese Firms are especially suitable as a research object in the areas that have been outlined above. A major aspect that needs to be considered is how a restructuring measure such as the introduction of standardized software is incorporated into the internal structure of the company. In my research I take the so-called ‘Toyota Production System’ in the Japanese Automotive Supplier Industry as a case to analyze the conflicts that arise between firm-specific, flexible processes (e.g. Kanban) and the standard processes of ERP software. I will show three different areas in which specific business processes are either persistent or dissolving due to the introduction of ERP software and give a general outline of the future development of the Toyota Production System in the Japanese Automotive Supplier Industry.

Trend: “Dissolution and Persistence of Specific Business Processes in the Japanese Automotive Supplier Industry - Conflicts between ERP Software and the Toyota Production System”

My findings are connected to a broader discussion on business process specifity of Japanese companies. The literature often characterizes them as being ‘exclusive’ (see Waldenberger, 1999), because standardization and coordination activities are often carried out inside the own group/keiretsu (Storz, 2003). Several analyses on architecture of the organisation and processes within Japanese companies define them as ‘closed and integral’ – as opposed to ‘open and modular’ which constitute especially American companies (Takeda, 2000; Fujimoto, 2001:6ff.). ‚Closed’ means that the participation in processes is exclusively reserved to a specific group of users (the members of the same group), while ‘integral’ points out to the inability to separate the processes into smaller tasks. These central characteristics of the Japanese firm will be dramatically affected by the introduction of corporate standard software. Through the dissemination of standardised processes, interfaces and protocols the Japanese system of exclusive business organization might evolve into a system coined by an open process architecture, which has been frequently stipulated (Aoki, 2000; Kokuryo, 1995)

Dieser Beitrag gehört zu den Kategorien Automotive (Supplier) Industry, Promotion, ICT und ihm wurden die Keywords it, technologie, japan, unternehmen, reformen, erp, zulieferer, toyota, kanban zugeordnet (Tag-Wolke anzeigen).

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