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Word from MMRC Executive
Director
Takahiro
Fujimoto |
Professor, University of
Tokyo | Greetings! Thank you very much
for visiting our website today. Please allow me to briefly
introduce our center. I am Takahiro Fujimoto, Executive
Director of MMRC. Being the first one to bring up the
Manufacturing Management Research Center (MMRC) Project at the
Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, I somehow have
ended up with the honor to claim to be the head of this
center.
MMRC was one of two 21st Century COE (Center of Excellence) Projects
at the Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo. Here we specialize on
the study of the “Integrated Manufacturing System,” which is the production-development-purchasing
system that was built among certain postwar Japanese firms and which is
represented by the Toyota Production System and TQC (Total Quality Control).
We regard the system as one of the most valuable intellectual assets our
country exported to the world in the latter half of the 20th century. In
academic fields as well, works by Japanese researchers on this theme have
gained worldwide reputation, and at the same time a network of researchers
investigating this subject has spread globally.
However,
research institutions concentrated on this area of study were
never established in Japan, thus output toward the world has
been limited. This resulted in recent steps backward in
international research, and in productivity gaps among firms
and industries.
MMRC was established to reform the current
situation based on the two principles of university-industry
collaboration and international cooperation. We have four
basic research themes: 1) Explicit and generic studies on the
“Integrated Manufacturing Systems” using an inter-industry
framework; 2) Architectural studies on product-process design
philosophies for enhancing competence analysis by re-scheming
industrial categories; 3) International comparative studies on
firm competence, in collaboration with MIT, Harvard Business
School, and several universities from France; 4) Studies on
brand power and sales force management for directing
competence to profit. Ten professors from the Faculty of
Economics, University of Tokyo, together with specially
appointed staff personnel, researchers, assistants, and
collaborators will work as a team to build a research center
that is open to society and the world.
As we aim to
enhance university-industry collaboration, our 400 square
meters office is located very close to University of Tokyo's
Hongo Campus, near Hongo San-chome Station (Marunouchi Subway
Line). Takashi Oshika, Specially Appointed Professor, has been
recruited from Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. to take
charge as the full time research director at MMRC.
Furthermore, as of today (April 2004), promising staff have
already come on board, and we are ready to move onto actual
research activities for the 2004 fiscal year. Several veterans
of professional careers in manufacturing management have
already taken our Specially Appointed Researcher posts. We are
looking forward to these people working as a team with young
researchers and students from the University of Tokyo and
other academic institutes to systematically translate their
abundant tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in a
conveyable form. We are adding purely academic studies as
well. We will work on each research activity aiming for
achievement corresponding to each of the project bases. Also,
in accordance with our original plan we are in the process of
asking certain people of significance in the exercise and
study of manufacturing management to join us as our advisors.
Likewise, we are launching a “Consortium of Manufacturing
Management Studies” to promote generic studies on the
knowledge of the Integrated Manufacturing Management System.
This will be the first consortium by the University of Tokyo,
in which we will ask about ten representative Japanese
manufacturing firms to join as first-termers. In the initial
few years, each company will draw up a “Manufacturing
Management Handbook.” By compiling their own “Handbook” and
browsing one another's, manufacturing system variations by
differences in products and markets should become made clear.
This would be a first step in generic studies on Japanese
manufacturing firms’ knowledge. Therefore, we expect each firm
joining the consortium to send coordinating personnel as
part-time collaborative researchers. These collaborative
researchers will tie up with our young researchers from the
University of Tokyo and backup the Handbook effort. In
addition, we are planning various “Specific Theme Workshops”
reflecting common issues among consortium firms.
At the
same time, educational efforts are lead by Professor Nobuo
Takahashi. An “Advanced Management Program,” a five year
consistent bachelor and master course education at the Faculty
of Economics, University of Tokyo, and the non-profit GBRC
(Global Business Research Center: 9F, Marunouchi Building)
work in closely with MMRC. We aim to nourish young and
eligible personnel who are capable in research and
dissemination of findings. Also, a “Freshman Business School”
is going to be started. This is a course open to freshman and
sophomore students of humanities, science, and math at the
University of Tokyo. At Marunouchi, a continuing education
course called “Manufacturing Talks” will provide regular
lectures on manufacturing management by academic and business
people. Meanwhile, we are approaching the Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry for possible university-government
collaboration.
Enduring, long-term research efforts are
essential for the kind of attempt outlined above, as is clear
from overseas cases such as at MIT and elsewhere. We have
allowed ourselves to claim to be a “Center” because we are
determined to dispatch intellectual output to the world
throughout the duration of the COE Program and
thereafter.
Nonetheless, frankly speaking, each of these efforts is pioneering. Much
trial and error is sure to happen. I personally am quite unsure that this
much can truly be done. Yet, there is no going back and thankfully, people
are coming to us finding interest in what we are trying to do. MMRC continues
activity afterwards as Tokyo University from April 2008. Your intellectual
and human support is our greatest source of energy. I most appreciate your
continuing encouragement and support. Thank you. | | |
