Post(s) tagged with "japan"
We can talk about scenario planning in order to see, understand and manage uncertainty on a longer term planning level but when it comes running the daily business the result of the process i e how we design companies and structures will be the crucial point for the future.
I am again talking about the need to redesign society and businesses and build resilient and shock-managing, rather than slim, lean, efficient and just-in-time structures. Or maybe they can be slim, lean, efficient and just-in-time, but ONLY of these properties are helping organizations to be better at managing dramatic and sudden changes. Otherwise this mental heritage (or garbage) of efficiency and just-in-time thinking from an obsolete industrial age will lead to a certain death when the grim reaper of unexpected shocks or changes comes to take his tribute.
The signs of change comes from Toyota who seems to maintain it’s thought leader position when it comes to taking the next level of industrial development into the area of resilience…
Based on the terrible experience of the Japanese earthquake Toyota are now aiming at change their manufacturing and supplier structures with these three steps:
- Standardizing parts - so Japanese automakers could share components manufactured in different locations
- Increase supplier inventories - so the outsourced delivery of components will be able to deliver parts longer and not so fast be victims of sudden shortages of material
- Making each region independent - i e procurement of components are local so a disaster somewhere would not affect production overseas
This is really interesting but it is worth noting it is just a part of the solution and just from the perspective of the manufacturing plant. There are much more work to do in order to make the whole value process around the automotive industry resilient and future ready.
But from a longer term strategic perspective, taking this path, or rather being forced to go down it, could turn out to be as important for the long term future success of Japanese auto manufacturers, as the collective Japanese decision to decrease fuel consumption was in the 1980:s.
Are the Japanese again using their problems and tragedies in order to improve before everybody else does?
Read more in Reuter article.
» Centuries-old Tsunami Warnings Carved in Stone - Long Views: The Long Now Blog
“High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants,” the stone slab reads. “Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.” Jay Alabaster of the AP reports that hundreds of stone markers dot the coastlines of Japan. The oldest of these markers appears to be near 600 years old. They carry warnings of tsunamis past and instruct readers to get to high ground after earthquakes. Some are even placed at high-water marks to indicate the extent of particular tsunami events.When again facing the consequences of our short sightedness it is interesting to see how people in the past were encoding important learnings into structures and artifacts - a kind of external and eternal memories which was to supposed to work as reminders or rules of thumb for how to lead our lives in the future without suffering the same consequences as people did in the past.
Source: blog.longnow.org
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P A Martin Börjesson
To be able to see the future emerge we have to throw a wide net to catch the weak signals. In this tumble I collect things I find valuable for my work as scenario planner, strategist and futurist - for more info about me go to www.futuramb.se.
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