L'objectif de cette présentation est de retracer les origines et les sources du consensus qui s'est bâti pendant les années 1990 et 2000 autour du paradigme de la lean production (production au plus juste ou production frugale). Il s'agira plus précisément de comprendre pourquoi et comment l'ouvrage "fondateur" de 1990, The Machine that Changed the World, (et la recherche derrière), a été financé, écrit et publié sous le label du MIT dans le contexte de la deuxième phase de l'International Motor Vehicle Program, et pourquoi le monde académique américain ne l'a pas perçu pour ce qu'il était (un "airport book" à la légitimité scientifique plus que douteuse) et l'a accepté pour ce qu'il n'était pas (la preuve scientifique d'une nouvelle révolution industrielle).
Deux hypothèses seront développées en particulier:
Issue d'une thèse en sociologie qui sera soutenue le 9 décembre à l'Université de Strasbourg (La coopération dans un environnement concurrentiel : une comparaison France-Japon), la présentation de Stéphane Heim traite d'un sujet très intéressant et de très grande actualité: celui des relations de sous-traitance au sein des filières automobiles. Stéphane Heim y développe notamment une analyse comparative très fine des réseaux de sous-traitance du Grand-Est franco-allemand et de la region de Tôkaï au Japon (Toyota). lire la suite
The aim of this paper will be to put into perspective the present crisis of Toyota, taking into account both the evolution of its productive model and its historical trajectory.
First, it will important to identify the nature and the scope of the present crisis. It is indeed possible to talk about multiple crises – profitability crisis, quality crisis, management crisis, brand image crisis... What are therefore the actual elements that in each of these domains justify or not the use of the term "crisis" ? More precisely, is Toyota confronted with a temporary or with a structural crisis ?
Second, we will try to make some hypotheses concerning the causes of these crises. It is clear in fact that these crises are the result of a complex chain of factors, but it is too early to be able to identify them. Nevertheless, on the basis of the past trajectory of Toyota, and with the knowledge of how its productive model functions, it is possible to advance some hypotheses. Notably, by stressing the hidden fragility of the Toyota Production System, and the constraints that the fast paced internationalization of the company in these last ten years have placed on its viability conditions.
Third, we will identify which are at present the consequences of these crises, and also what they might be in the near and more distant future. Again, the understanding of the fragility of TPS leads us to believe that the crisis that Toyota is undergoing today will be deeper and longer than it is generally expected, and we will provide some explanations and evidences on why we do believe so.
Finally, we will discuss the meaning of this crisis, not only for Toyota, but for the whole sector as well. Since the late 1980s the TPS has been indeed the template that the sector has used to transform itself in a more efficient and flexible system of production. The results are by all standards very poor as the present structural crisis of the sector emphasis only too well. Now, even some advocates of Lean Production were stressing already in the middle of the 1990s most of its limits. The Gerpisa works have gone further in deconstructing this managerial panacea. Yet, the success of Toyota in the late 1990s and 2000s after a more difficult period in the early 1990s, had restored the general faith in Lean Production. Hopefully, this faith will be shattered by the present crisis, and the search for new ways of generating value in the sector will finally begin.
• Aujourd’hui le régime de production lean (au plus juste) est la norme du secteur :
–Flux tendu de production
–Just-in-Time
–Teamwork et participation des salariés aux activités de réduction des coûts
• Les enjeux de sécurité, santé au travail et vieillissement y sont centraux
• La notion de lean production est un concept managérial construit pour introduire le Système de Production Toyota en Occident
• Objectif de la présentation : déconstruire la représentation convenue des implications de ce modèle d’organisation de la production et du travail pour la santé, la sécurité et la carrière des salariés
In 1989, the Japanese carmaker Toyota established in Burnaston (UK) their first European transplant. Expected to become one of the most efficient auto factories in Europe and to be as successful as the American transplants set up by the company during the 1980s, Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK (TMUK) has failed to fulfil these expectations, cumulating in 10 years of production losses of more than £600 million and since 1999 falling into a serious crisis, which has put into question the internal compromise between the actors of the firm. The article traces back the trajectory of TMUK from its foundation up to the present crisis. It shows how the crisis emerged progressively from the initial shortcomings of the hybridized employment relationship of the transplant, and how it deepened under the difficult economic conditions faced by the company on the European market. The article also introduces an alternative theoretical approach based on the notion of the ‘productive model’ developed by the GERPISA international research network, which aims to deconstruct the functionalist idea of a unique and superior Japanese model transferable everywhere and by everybody, and to re-establish the Japanese transplants as full historical objects and as social and political organizations.
