Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and around the central firm, rather than the NIDL pattern of moving simple
functions out to peripheral regions. It has, however, been noted that in recent
decades the Japanese model has been transferred to other countries. Within the
USA, for example, Japanese companies have occupied a new industrial space,
marginal to the old Mid-Western industrial belt, and reaching down from Ohio
into Kentucky and Tennessee (
Fig. 3.2
). The system thus encourages some
regional shift of activity. Choice of new places for manufacture apparently
responds to a need to escape regions where labour unions and regulations make
it difficult to establish a new work pattern and work ethic. In the American Mid
West, the new Japanese plants have attracted their own Japanese component
suppliers, but these are close enough to be able to supply also the older native us
motor firms. Industrial relocation is thus through a gradual shift.
It should be noticed in any case that the Japanese location habits in the USA
are comparable to those being adopted by domestic firms in that country
(Rubenstein 1986). For General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, the three largest home
companies, it has been seen as advantageous for at least two decades to move
into states adjacent to the original car-making states, into an “outer Mid West” of
states like Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee. This pattern of “dispersed
concentration” is thus becoming an important feature of the total North American
structure. The reason for the dispersion was initially a need to supply regional
markets from closer factories. In more recent years, the move is into states with
more flexible labour and less union control. Similar trends are to be seen in the
Japanese plants in Britain, located at new sites like Derby, Washington in County
Durham, and Swindon, away from the old industrial areas but accessible to the
overall industry.
The long-term significance of the Japanese “just in time” type of organization,
both spatially and technologically, is unknown. In terms of spatial concentration,
dispersed concentration seems to be the trend, and this is something replacing a
previous trend towards a centre-periphery model, with global manufacturing
involving many countries specializing in the production of components which
could be put together in a number of final assembly plants. But the Toyota
pattern is not being followed by all competitors. It should be noted that a leading
Japanese manufacturer, the Honda company, has spread its factories widely in
Japan, and relies on a more complex network of linkages between factories,
which does not correspond to a cluster around a central assembler or main
company (Mair 1995). Honda has main plants in Sayama, Wako, Suzuka,
Hamamatsu, and Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu (
Fig. 3.3
). Its parts are
supplied mostly from the Tokyo area, where Nissan is centred, and from
Nagoya, the Toyota centre, and it uses the component manufacturers linked into
these other companies. In terms of company structure, there is no
keiretsu,
the
typical Japanese arrangement with a closely knit set of companies around the
central one. Honda can nevertheless claim to be at least as innovative and
successful as the others.
