quick look on invaluable Japanese culture (6) respect to manufacturing

(6) Respect to manufacturing

In western society , top managements tend to overlook actual manufacturing site , while, in Japan, even noble men have been engaged in manufacturing process. Japanese oldest book “Kojiki” subscribed “Amaterasu Omikami”, the founder of Imperial household, working in a rice field and sawing clothes. Japanese leaders take an actual manufacturing process as important as a theory for manufacturing.

Samurais who belonged to the upper class in Edo era, were also leaders of manufacturing including building towns and castles. After Meiji Revolution, they worked hard at the head of developing modern industries.

There is Japanese special idea called “ sannsenn soumoku shikkai joubutsu” which means anything including stones and soils have their lives. This idea became popular among priests of Kamakura era’s Buddhism (12-13^th century) and gradually prevailed into public. To be influenced by such traditional thoughts, modern Japanese still tend to think each material has it’s own life and feature. They watch and study hard about materials so that they can maximize each material’s own particular character.

Thanks to prevailing rice fields, there have been lots of rice straws available. People processed them into a tremendous range of products by maximizing it’s character. For example, rope,　sandal,　slipper,　rain coat, mat, flexible container , hat, glove , broom and so on.

They also utilized bamboo thoroughly. They cut bamboo at early winter when bamboo stops growing. Products from bamboo are basket, cage, blind, chopstick, broom, rake, fishing rod, flute, pipe, tea whisk, fan, umbrella, lantern, bow and arrow, sword, spear, stilt and so on.

Horyuji, the oldest wooden temple building, was built in around 7^th century. Carpenters studied each wooden peace one by one, and organized each peace of woods by utilizing each one’s character including bending inclination. They built the temple so neatly whitout using any metal nails that the building is still in good condition after 1400 years.

Art products reflect directly the aim or passion of artists, while fork crafts pay more attention on user’s requirement. Quality of Japanese fork craft has been so high that foreigners who visited Japan before and after the Revolution, such as Dr.Siebold or Dr.Morse, they collected every article they found. Those were so sophisticated even though those were so cheap. It is common in Japan that products should be beautiful as well as convenient.

Japanese method of managing factories is called as “5S” which stands for 5 Japanese words for arrangement, order, discipline, cleanliness, cleaning. “5S” has become the world standard method for managing factories.

Oldest building in Horyuji (Wikipedia)