The limits of mass production: back to the temple carpenter (1990)

The weight of a pivot that negates your own strength

What is essential in this decision is that, at the very peak of the industry’s highest margins, the company questioned the mass-production method that had produced those margins. Mori Seiki had climbed into the big three by turning out standard products in volume; that it read where demand was heading — toward systems — and moved toward quality while its finances still had room can be seen as foresight that refused to settle into its own success. In taking a knife to its strength while business was good, it was a different kind of act from a restructuring driven by crisis.

A pivot that gives up a strength nevertheless carried a heavy price. A new plant built for volume did not suit made-to-order production, forcing equipment to be replaced and producing losses. At home the image of a volume manufacturer was stubborn, and the turn toward quality bore fruit, ironically, not in Japan but in bespoke machines for large European and American customers. Between the ideal of returning to the temple carpenter and the real production system built for volume lay a gap that took years to close. How to rebuild one strength into the next — Mori Seiki’s choice around 1990 shows that the more successful a company is, the more time and pain the design of its transition demands.