Creating competitive advantage for an electric manufacturer using SCM

Masaki Iijima, Nobutaka Naruse and Yoshio Furukawa

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2011, vol. 7, issue 4, 434-445

Abstract: The 'Hoshizaki' Electric Co., Ltd., established in 1947, has developed fully-automated ice-making machines in Japan, and has been manufacturing and selling major refrigerators for business use as well as ice-making machines. The ice-making machines have the top share in the world. Annual sale in 2009 reached JPY160 B. Formerly, there were four issues concerning SCM promotion that aimed at reducing lead-time. The company has been continuing Kaizen that has resulted in a reduction of products inventory, a shortening of lead time, an increase in product variation, a change in production systems, and other events. This paper discusses how the manufacturing company tried to tackle these issues, and presents the establishment of an effective SCM in the treatment of increased product variation and quantity, inventory and operators resulted because of Kaizen, and management efforts in the use of information system.

Keywords: kaizen; Japan; continuous improvement; productivity; cooperation; suppliers; information systems; cellular production; innovation; SCM; supply chain management; competitive advantage; Hoshizaki Electric Company; fully-automated machines; ice-making machines; refrigerators; refrigerator manufacturers; refrigeration; lead-times; product inventories; inventory reduction; product variation; production systems; manufacturing industry; success; business strategies; globalisation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=42750 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijbglo:v:7:y:2011:i:4:p:434-445

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Business and Globalisation from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().