Abstract:
At present, it is noted that Operations Management has made a Considerable change in manufacturing field.
It is highly visible in Japanese management practice today. Japanese management is very popular in
manufacturing. In this practice, the newly introduced concepts namely Just-In-Time (JIT), Total quality
control (TQC) and Kanban play a greater role. How do these concepts become more popular in the real
practice today? Secrecy behind this is that they have shown so feasible in the Japanese management practice
today. Currently a more comprehensive understanding of these new concepts and the Japanese practice has
led to their usage throughout the world during 1970s and on into the 1980s. In Japanese management
practice employee involvement has become very popular. Openness and total employee involvement are
important to Japanese. All employees help to solve production problems when they occur. The Japanese
workers are specially well-equipped to participate in decision making. One of the most often discussed aspects
of the Japanese management is lifetime employment. It allows employees to take risks and offer suggestions
that improve operations. Productivity in United States failed to keep pace with that of other industrial
countries. (J.eromeA.Mark, 1979). During this era, many foreign companies started to carve out substantial
niches for themselves in United States markets. Prominent examples for this situation are Nissan, Toyota,
Sanyo, and Sony. Under this climate, managers in United States have become acutely aware of a more
competitive worldwide market. Here, the competitiveness is a frequent topic of discussion at present among
managers and government officials and in the mass media. Competitiveness can be defined as the relative
standing of one competitor against other rivals. It is of course like the game of musical chairs. The major
three American automakers such as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have worries about their
organizations’ relative standing in the United States automobile marketplace. Competitiveness has become a
prominent business and government concerns in the era of global business as a contest among nations.
Members of the mass media routinely talk about the competitiveness is a benchmark for past performance. In
this case, the Japanese companies play a greater role at present. These companies have a significant
percentage of the world Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) market. This rapidly increasing competition has
meant decreased market shares of United States and Canadian business practices. Before this challenging
situation especially United States and Canada have refined their attention on cost control, productivity
improvement and quality. Since 1970s Japan has penetrated into North American markets. Now it is repeated
itself in Western Europe. Under this climate, North American business practices are gaining a greater
appreciation of the strategies implemented by the giant international competitors, Particularly the Japanese
manufacturers. As such, it is worthwhile to understand the Japanese management practice and the secrecy
behind their manufacturing. As the situation is so, it was a puzzle to the author that why Sri Lanka is still at
the bottom of the industrialization.Also, the author aims to point out the manner in which existing industries
in Sri Lanka ought to be restructured. Especially, this message would be given to the owners of the industries
here and the policy markers. Moreover, a vacuum of providing opinions in this respect was also indentified
by the author. The ideas have been presented along with this paper methodologically. It was concluded here
that as western companines now learn from Japanese, Sri Lanka should essentially absorb and implement
the Japanese management techniques to develop our industries.