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C H A P T E R 9
Individual Products to Team
Products–Individual Play to
Team Play
9.1 WHY DO PRODUCTS NEED TO WORK AS A TEAM?
We have discussed value and rationality, but so far the discussion has focused on individual
products. But, in order to cope with the frequently and extensively changing environments and
situations, we need a wide variety of capabilities. What we need now is high adaptability. en,
how can we develop high adaptability?
9.2 TREE AND NETWORK
Let us consider industry and social structures. How different are they between the traditional
individual product-based manufacturing and operation to team-based manufacturing?
TREE
In the 20th century, when environments and situations did not change appreciably, our strategy
was fixed and did not change over time. e tree structure worked best for such a long-term
single strategy, because a tree has only one output node and its structure is static, and does not
change (Fig. 9.1).
NETWORK
However, as tree structure has only one node and static, it does not work in rapidly changing
environments and situations. We need a wide variety of knowledge, experience, and capabilities
to cope with the frequently and extensively changing situations. us, structures are quickly
changing into a network (Fig. 9.2).
In a network, any node can be an output node. So, a network can respond flexibly to
diverse situations. But to adapt to the changing situations, the network must be adaptive. To
be adaptable, each node in a network needs to play a different role required to respond to the
changes. us, each node is required to have multiple capabilities.
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