在3月份日本那场毁灭性地震和海啸导致全球供应链陷入瘫痪后，人们不由得发出呼吁：重新思考全球准时制(JIT)供应链系统。一些人曾预测，供应链中断的局面将持续到今年年底，甚至更晚。然而，灾难发生后仅4个月，日本就以令人瞩目的速度开始了复苏。这很大程度上是因为日本独特的合作资本主义为该国环环相扣、复原能力超强的商业体系提供了支撑。
7月份数据显示，日本工业产值连续第三个月实现增长，其中汽车制造业的复苏尤为强劲。三菱电机(Mitsubishi Electric)公布的第一季度营利数据好于预期，该企业还调高了今年的收益预估。其他企业的表现同样强劲：日立(Hitachi)在本土的生产线大部分都位于受灾最严重的地区，但到3月底，就已几乎全面恢复运营，一度因受灾而陷入瘫痪的日立港口也于4月3日重新开放。
上世纪80年代，日本的商业体系令西方国家许多人叹为观止，直到近些年，这一体系才渐渐失去了人们的青睐，因为它对不断变化的宏观经济环境反应迟缓，导致日本出现了两个“失去的十年”。然而，海啸发生后，这一体系显示出支持经济迅速复苏的强大能力，正如1995年神户地震和2007年新泻(Chuetsu)地震之后的情况一样。
目前供应方面依然存在的问题中，许多都是因为电子集团瑞萨(Renesas)旗下一家位于常陆那珂(Hitachinaka)的工厂严重受损。该工厂的股东还有日本电气(NEC)、日立和三菱电机，全球相当一部分自动微控芯片都产自这里。这些母公司派出了数百名员工协助恢复工作的进行，但更有趣的是，瑞萨的客户们也伸出了援手——丰田(Toyota)、本田(Honda)和其他企业也派出人手来协助。该工厂一度有近3000名非瑞萨员工在帮忙，其中大部分是工程师。因此，工厂6月1日就恢复了生产，比最初的预计提前了许多。到9月底，其生产应该可以恢复地震前水平。
平日里竞争激烈的对手迅速相互施以援手，这种情形在日本其它地方也很普遍。就拿日立化成工业(Hitachi Chemical)来说，它在距离福岛第一核电站(Fukushima)不远处的浪江町(Namie)有两家工厂，其中一家生产用于重型电动机（用于必不可少的公共基础设施建设）的碳刷。日立化成工业首席执行官田中一之(Kazuyuki Tanaka)就曾表示，恢复生产比“保护我们的重要技术不被泄露给竞争对手”更重要。这里和瑞萨工厂的情形一样，在接到其他企业的援助并决定接受的整个过程中，没有签订任何合同，也没有人讨论费用该如何分配。
尽管恢复速度很快，但生产必然受到了严重的阻断。对于日本各大企业的全球客户来说，这些企业哪怕停产几周，造成的损失也让它们难以承受。因此，人们正构想一系列战略，以增强复原能力，其中包括提高生产分散程度，并为各个厂址间设计和生产信息的转移做出一些新的安排。这些新策略将应用于企业内部的各个工厂，但如今也有可能推及至与竞争对手的正式协议——以便在未来发生灾难时提供后备工厂。
尽管如此，尤其是考虑到供应链恢复的速度，没有多少迹象表明日本企业打算抛弃它们传统的准时制生产战略，更不用说彻底搬离日本了。供应链及汽车制造业专家、东京大学(University of Tokyo)教授藤本隆宏(Takahiro Fujimoto)坦承，改善供应链的复原能力应放在重中之重，但他认为，这不需要“牺牲竞争力”就能实现。
日本海啸生动地说明了合作资本主义是如何快速调动资源、并为高效但脆弱的供应链提供复原力的秘密之源的。现在，有一点看起来很清楚：这场危机是增强而非削弱了日本独特的资本主义模式。
乔治•奥尔科特(George Olcott)是东京大学尖端科学技术研究中心教授。尼克•奥利弗(Nick Oliver)是爱丁堡大学商学院(University of Edinburgh Business School)负责人。
译者/吴蔚
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001040643
After the paralysis of the global supply chain caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March, there have been the inevitable calls for a rethink of global, just-in-time supply systems. Some predicted that the disruption would last until the end of the year, if not longer. But just four months on, Japan’s recovery is taking place with remarkable speed, in large part because of the unusual brand of co-operative capitalism that underpins the tight-knit and remarkably resilient Japanese business system.
July's figures revealed that Japan’s industrial production had risen for the third month in a row, with auto manufacturers reviving especially strongly. Mitsubishi Electric also announced better than expected first-quarter profits, and has revised upwards its earnings estimates for this year. Other companies have responded strongly too: Hitachi, much of whose domestic production capacity is located in the area most affected, was almost fully operational by the end of March, while Hitachi Port, crippled by the disasters, reopened on April 3.
Held in awe by many in the west in the 1980s, Japan’s system has until recently fallen out of favour for being slow to adjust to changing macroeconomic conditions, resulting in the country’s two lost decades. Yet the tsunami has actually revealed the system’s capacity for rapid recovery – just as it did following the 1995 Kobe earthquake, and the 2007 Chuetsu earthquake.
Many of the current supply problems are due to damage at a plant belonging to electronics group Renesas, in Hitachinaka. The plant, jointly owned by NEC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, produces a significant share of the world’s automotive microcontroller chips. The parent firms have sent hundreds of staff to help with the recovery, but, more interestingly, Renesas’s customers are helping out too, with Toyota, Honda and others dispatching staff to help with recovery efforts. At one point, there were nearly 3,000 non-Renesas employees at the plant, mostly engineers. As a result production restarted on June 1, much earlier than first anticipated. By late September production should be back to pre-quake levels.
This pattern, in which usually fierce competitors have come quickly to each others’ aid, has been repeated elsewhere. Take Hitachi Chemical, which has two factories at Namie, a short distance from the Fukushima nuclear station. One plant produces carbon brushes for heavy-duty electric motors, which are used in vital public infrastructure. Kazuyuki Tanaka, Hitachi Chemical’s chief executive, has noted that restarting production was more important than revealing “some important parts of our knowhow to our competitors”. Here, as at Renesas, help has been offered, and accepted, without contracts and without discussion of financial arrangements.
There has of course been major disruption, despite the speedy recovery. Even a few weeks of lost production is too much for the global clients of major Japanese companies to bear. A range of strategies are therefore being developed to improve resilience, including greater diversification of production and new arrangements to transfer design and production information across manufacturing sites. These will apply to facilities within companies, but also now may include formal agreements with competitors to provide substitute facilities in the event of a future disaster.
In spite of this, and especially given the speed at which supply chains have bounced back, there is little sign that Japanese companies are planning to turn their backs on their traditional “just in time” manufacturing strategies, let alone leave Japan entirely. Professor Takahiro Fujimoto of the University of Tokyo, an expert on supply chains and the automotive industry, admits that improving supply chain resilience must be a priority, but believes this can be done without “sacrificing competitiveness”.
The tsunami has graphically demonstrated how co-operative capitalism allows rapid mobilisation of resources and offers a hidden source of resilience to efficient but vulnerable supply chains. It now seems clear that the latest crisis has strengthened, not weakened, Japan’s distinctive form of capitalism.
George Olcott is a professor at the research centre for advanced science and technology at the University of Tokyo. Nick Oliver is head of the University of Edinburgh Business School
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