Cost Reduction and Cost Management in Lean Enterprises - Robin Cooper - When Lean Enterprises Collide: Competing Through Confrontation

 

When Lean Enterprises Collide: Competing Through Confrontation

Robin Cooper

Harvard Business Press, 1995 - Business & Economics - 379 pages

When Lean Enterprises Collide reveals a new theory of competition in which lean manufacturers  create the most innovative product at the lowest price. These firms engage in a game of constant and lightning-fast leapfrogging in pursuit of transitory gains. This is the confrontation strategy, and it will shape the competitive landscape for lean enterprises.

Cooper shows that the key to success in such an environment is the careful balance of cost, quality, and functionality - the survival triplet - in which cost is the critical element. He describes eight innovative cost management techniques - including target costing and value engineering - that have emerged in Japanese firms to manage costs across the value chain. Leading manufacturers must use aggressive cost management along with TQM and time-to-market to develop products with the appropriate mix of quality, cost, and functionality to satisfy the customer.

Evidence of this relentless confrontation strategy and the hidden role of cost management within it emerged during Cooper's five-year study of the management systems inside twenty Japanese companies, including Olympus, Nissan, Citizen, and Komatsu.

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Table of Contents

Part 1 The confrontation strategy: the confrontation strategy; why firms adopt a confrontation strategy; the role of the survival triplet. 

Part 2 The role of cost management: the hidden role of cost management; the actual role of cost management; creating the right organization; creating the right organizational context. 

Part 3 Managing the costs of new products: identifying future products; target costing; value engineering; inter-organizational cost management systems. 

Part 4 Managing the costs of existing products: product costing; operational control; Kaizen. 

Part 5 Harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit: creating business managers; managing firm size; when lean enterprises collide.