CAPACITY BUILDING IN PRODUCING AIRCRAFT ENGINES DURING THE WARTIME According to the Case of J. Fukao and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd

• Published in: Keiei Shigaku (Japan Business History Review) Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 23 - 49_1
• Main Author: Maeda, Hiroko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Business History Society of Japan 25.09.1998
• ISSN: 0386-9113; 1883-8995
• DOI: 10.5029/bhsj.33.2_23

During the decade finishing in 1944, a drastic change of production method occurred in aircraft industry in Japan, as in the U. S. Japan had joined late in the field of modern high-technological industry, then paid a great energy in catching up to develop world-level aircraft engines. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries played a big role for this. After developing some kind of excellent engines, Mitsubishi met a more difficult issue. It was the so-called mass production method (if not used in an accurate terminology), which they had not experienced in the field of such products that consist of so many parts, need long and precise mechanical operation processes. Under a strong leadership of J. Fukao, who was the key man of the engine department of the company, Mitsubishi strove for building a new method. First, they tried to imitate the system of the U.S. aircraft engine factories, and succeeded only a part. The industrial circumstances of Japan were not matured for a company to realize the same system. Mitsubishi ought to seek another way and their method might show the limits of the industrial abilities of a late-coming country. The most outstanding feature of the method could be expressed as the simultaneous capacity building in the total area of the production processes, including those of casting, forging, making special parts or machine tools as well as mechanical operation and assembly. The result was awful. However, this cumulative and self-generating experience formed the basis of production engineering of the next generation.