In 1946, Japanese adopted TQM (Total quality management) philosophy that states the commitment of all tasks done by all departments at optimum level. And in TQM philosophy it is mentioned as KAIZEN Approach meaning continuous improvement systems to be implemented for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. As a result in mid 80’s,Japanese products and services dominated the world market share due to its lower price, excellent quality and high reliability.
Another reason behind Japan’s technological success is recycling products as Japanese do not have wasteful culture unlike American’s. They recycle products and create value added products from them and it is the part of their tacit knowledge.
Japanese used ambidextrous approach by hiring young and inexperienced human resource which can take risks for innovation. Companies like Sony, Honda, Toyota and Nissan are relying mainly on creativity and innovation for the development of their products. In 1990’s,during the development of Toyota PRIUS, Executive President Wada chosen Takeshi Uchiyamada as a team leader of G21 team as project was different to develop a car of 21st century. So the whole product development process was different from traditional systems and this ambidextrous approach practically worked.
Japanese culture is quite different from rest of nations and it can be argued as one of its reasons behind Japan success. Japanese do lot of brainstorming and ideas sharing as well as their higher officials do not feel hesitancy while communicating with operator level employees. Ideas, creativity, knowledge, cultures are such resources which cannot be easily copied or imitated. For example, TPS(Toyota production system was one of the examples as on one occasion, Toyota allowed GM to look the production system but still the culture was unique so it could not be copied by GM.
There are various tools and techniques like six sigma, zero defect, just in time of TQM philosophy for development of quality products are used. Six sigma ensures 99.99966% quality in products or 3.4 defective parts per million (PPM).Both, Motorola and General Electric remained beneficiary of six sigma methodologies. This adoption created a repute of Japanese products to be highly reliable. Japanese products reliability is not something unknown to the World as still today models of 1960’s Toyota Corolla can be seen on roads.