THE EMERGENCE OF AGED SOCIETY AND WORK REORGANIZATION AT A PLANT

Research Project

Project/Area Number	10630112
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Business administration
Research Institution	Hiroshima University
Principal Investigator	NOHARA Hikari Hiroshima University, GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION PROFESSOR, 大学院・国際協力研究科, 教授 (40085999)
Project Period (FY)	1998 – 1999
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1999)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000) Fiscal Year 1999: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000) Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000)
Keywords	Complete Process / Cell Production / belt conveyer / assembly line / Uddevalla / work organization / ベルトコンベア / 作業組織再編成 / 自動車産業 / 生産システム / 働きがい / 労働力不足 / 社会環境変化 / 中高年労働力 / 「半」自動化
Research Abstract	Aged society makes it necessary to utilize aged and female workers Because of this many experimentations such as ergonomic and amenity improvements and work reorganization are now realized in various plants. In this regard I investigated lot of plants in auto and electronic industries in Japan. I also investigated Uddevalla plant of Volvo for the purpose of getting the reference point, which abolished assembly line system for the first time all over world. In Japanese auto industry, there are two plants, Honda Takanezawa and Daihatsu Ikeda which already abolish a belt conveyer, but still keep an assembly line system itself in one hand. There are some plants of Toyota on the other hand, which still maintain a belt conveyer, but reconsider fragmented division of labor on an assembly line and introduce Complete Process, which means that they try to recover functionally meaningful content in work itself. In electronic industry many plants introduce so called Cell Production, which means that they abolish a belt conveyer and make each worker's job enlarged.