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  3. Japanese firms have achieved the highest levels of manufacturing efficiency

Japanese firms have achieved the highest levels of manufacturing efficiency

游客2024-01-12  27
问题     Japanese firms have achieved the highest levels of manufacturing efficiency in the world automobile industry. Some observers of Japan have assumed that Japanese firms use the same manufacturing equipment and techniques as United States firms but have benefited from the unique characteristics of Japanese employees and the Japanese culture. However, if this were true, then one would expect Japanese auto plants in the United States to perform no better than factories run by United States companies. This is not the case, Japanese-run automobile plants located in the United States and staffed by local workers have demonstrated higher levels of productivity when compared with factories owned by United States companies.
    Other observers link high Japanese productivity to higher levels of capital investment per worker. But a historical perspective leads to a different conclu- sion. When the two top Japanese automobile makers matched and then doubled United States productivity levels in the mid-sixties, capital investment per employee was comparable to that of United States firms. Furthermore, by the late seventies, the amount of fixed assets required to produce one vehicle was roughly equivalent in Japan and in the United States. Since capital invest - ment was not higher in Japan, it had to be other factors that led to higher productivity.
    A more fruitful explanation may lie with Japanese production techniques. Japanese automobile producers did not simply implement conventional processes more effectively: they made critical changes in United States procedures. For instance, the mass-product ion phi- losophy of United States automakers encouraged the production of huge lots of cars in order to utilize fully expensive, component-specific equipment and to occupy fully workers who have been trained to execute one operation efficiently. Japanese automakers chose to make small-lot production feasible by introducing several departures from United States practices, including the use of flexible equipment that could be altered easily to do several different production tasks and the training of workers in multiple jobs. Automakers could schedule the production of different compo- nents or models on single machines, thereby eliminating the need to store the buffer stocks of extra components that result when specialized equipment and workers are kept constantly active. [br] The author suggests that if the observers of Japan mentioned in line 4 were correct, which of the following would be the case?
选项 A、The equipment used in Japanese automobile plants would be different from the equipment used in United States plants.
B、Japanese workers would be trained to do several different production jobs.
C、Culture would not have an influence on the productivity levels of workers.
D、The workers in Japanese-run plants would have higher productivity levels regardless of where they were located.
E、The production levels of Japanese-run plants located in the United States would be equal to those of plants run by United States companies.
答案 E
解析 作者暗示，如果第4行所说的日本观察者正确，下面哪一项将正确?第4行所提：即认为日本企业效率高是日本文化影响。此观点作者是反对的，并给出反对的理由(L10，However之后)，如果这些观察者是正确的，作者反对的这些理由应该不成立。∴E正确。在美国的日本企业，其生产水平应该和在美国的本土企业相仿。A、B、C、D皆不符合原文推理。
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