A Viable System View of the Japanese Lean Production System

Today, growing complexity and variability of the business environment, calls for more flexible and efficient production systems. Among the most effective and efficient production system, the Japanese lean production is the most known and studied, but still not the most applied with success outside Japan. The reason of the scarce success of lean production outside its native country is the insufficient understanding of the strong interactions among the enterprise system and the business system. In order to fill this gap of knowledge, it can be useful to investigate the systemic interaction according to the Viable System Model (VSM) and its evolution in business science, the Viable System Approach (VSA). In this paper we combine these models in an unified framework, integrating the internal analysis of VSM with the analysis of the links with supra-systems developed by VSA. We apply this framework to analyze the peculiar aspects of Japanese lean production systems in Japan. There are many similarities between the Japanese lean production system and the Viable Systems approach. In particular: - the strong interactions of the kaisha with the environment; - the recursivity of the system; - the importance of relationships (“relational capitalism”, Okimoto & Rohlen, 1988). We first describe the applications of VSM to business, as highlighted by Stafford Beer and the developments of VSA of the Italian school of G.M. Golinelli. Then we proceed depicting the peculiarities of lean production system, shedding light on its roots with the Japanese business environment (Dominici, 2010). We conclude drawing a scheme of lean production system as a viable system and we analyze the results and the possibilities for further research.