Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management [Hardcover]

Michael A. Cusumano (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195062167 | ISBN-13: 978-0195062168 | Publication Date: March 7, 1991

Though Japan has successfully competed with U.S. companies in the manufacturing and marketing of computer hardware, it has been less successful in developing computer programs. This book contains the first detailed analysis of how Japanese firms have tried to redress this imbalance by applying their skills in engineering and production management to software development. Cusumano focuses on the creation of "software factories" in which large numbers of people are engaged in developing software in cooperative ways--i.e. individual programs are not developed in isolation but rather utilize portions of other programs already developed whenever possible, and then yield usable portions for other programs being written. Devoting chapters to working methods at System Developing Corp., Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, and Fujitsu, and including a comparison of Japanese and U.S. software factories, Cusumano's book will be important reading for all people involved in software and computer technology, as well as those interested in Japanese business and corporate culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A much-needed dose of reality for every programmer or manager...does a fine job of defining, through five detailed case studies, the domain where the software factory approach works...it's important you read this book...the approach does work and will gain in popularity...may prove vital to the health of your career."--Computer Language

"Since the mid-1980s, various studies have noted the advantages of Japan's more structured approach to software writing. But most were poorly researched and largely ignored. Cusumano claims to have done the most thorough, quantitative analysis of the issue, and his work is turning heads in the U.S."--The Wall Street Journal

"Valuable to practitioners and academics in such fields as engineering, management, and computer science. It should also be fascinating to students of business and economic history."--Journal of Asian Studies

"The fascinating story of the Japanese software factory is documented in Japan's Software Factories....With software at the core of efforts to boost efficiency and productivity, the country with the best software will have a major strategic advantage in the 21st century. Japanese software factories have made important advances in moving forward a most vexing, hard-to-manage technology. Their methods merit close study."--Across The Board

"For anyone involved with the issues of software and competitiveness, this is essential reading."--Software Productivity Consortium Quarterly

About the Author

Michael A. Cusumano is at Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 7, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195062167
• ISBN-13: 978-0195062168
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,487,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, with a joint appointment in MIT's Engineering Systems Division. His research focuses on technology management and strategy, especially in the software business. He received an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in production and operations management at the Harvard Business School. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and a Japan Foundation Fellow at the University of Tokyo. In 2009, he delivered the 13th annual Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies at Oxford University and was named one of the most influential people in technology and IT by Silicon.com. Professor Cusumano is a director of a leading Indian IT services company, Patni Computer Systems (NYSE: PTI, www.patni.com), and of an interactive voice communications provider, Eliza Corporation (www.elizacorporation.com). He is also an advisor to FixStars Corp. (www.fixstars.com), which builds high-performance computing applications for clusters of Sony Playstation consoles and other multi-core processor blade servers; and Buzzient (www.buzzient.com), a social media analytics and integration firm. He is the author or co-author of 8 books, including The Business of Software (2004), Platform Leadership (2002), Competing on Internet Time (1998), and Microsoft Secrets (1995).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cusumano's initial misconceptions about software, October 7, 1999

By 

Andy Glew (Hillsboro, OR, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management (Hardcover)

This is one of the earliest in a series of books that Cusumano has written on software technology. In this book he cries "Wolf!": the Japanese are so much better at industrial strength software development than Americans, they have a "software factory", etc., etc.

In his subsequent books, especially those on Microsoft and Netscape, Cusumano slowly discovers that the traditional software development process, requirements/specifications/code, etc., e.g. the waterfall model, is *NOT* the model adopted by successful software companies (and, indeed, not the model adopted by many hardware companies). He learns that designs are not something to be churned out by a factory - indeed, if they can be churned out, then they should be reusing exactly the same software.

In some ways the packaged software industry, e.g. Microsoft, supplanted the custom software industry in this timeframe, the time of the PC; Microsoft's process, which Cusumano calls "synchronize and stabilize", may be considered to be JIT (Just In Time) software specification and development. Or, if not Just In Time, As Soon As Possible and No Earlier than Necessary.

While I cannot agree with the conclusions of this book, it is interesting to have on one's bookshelf, to see the evolution of the author's thought over time.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Software factories now in India?, April 8, 2004

By 

Charles F. (San Fran, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management (Hardcover)

The explanation for what happened to Japanese software factories is in Cusumano's latest book, The Business of Software, which is a more valuable read. The Japanese factories tried to solve the problem of efficiently building custom systems for Japanese customers using mainframes. Cusumano still argues that the factory approach worked well for mainframe software but Japanese programmers didn't have the skills to shift to newer platforms (PCs, workstations). I think the author over-estimated what the Japanese would be able to do. The Japanese are still struggling with old-style development techniques, despite close to zero-bugs, according to recent data from Cusumano. The Indians adopted similar practices (standard dev techniques, reuse, statistical data) but with much better trained people, more adaptable processes, and have been able to handle a wide variety of systems requirements and technologies. I still find Japan's Software Factories a useful look at how Japanese and some U.S. companies made progress in software engineering, particularly their approach to quality control and testing, and reuse. The Indians have gone a step beyond Japan, but they had to start somewhere.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ahead of his time, January 22, 2006

By 

Lawrence White "ljw" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management (Hardcover)

Both of the previous viewers cite Japan's lack of success in the commercial software business as evidence the methodologies here are inherently inferior to either US or Indian approaches. They're not.

In fact, the evidence provided in Cusumano's more recent book, The Business of Software suggests that these methods work very well indeed. In the study reported in that book, Japanese development firms outperform US and Indian firms significantly on productivity and by an enormous margin on quality. I would suggest that this is a direct result of the programs described in this book and the gradual, but continuous improvements they produced.

Japan hasn't fared as well as the US in software products or as well as India in outsourcing, but that has more to do with other factors than with the methods described here. If Japan had India's labor rates, they could compete very well indeed in outsourcing. If they had America's entrepreneurial environment, venture capital community, educational system, language (English) and the world's largest domestic market, they might have done better in software products. As it is, comparing Hitachi's success in the software industry to, say Netscape's, is misleading. Compare them instead to GE, Xerox, HP, etc., none of whom made a dent in the software industry either. Large corporations, almost universally, move too slow to capture an emerging software market.

One final note, these methods are NOT appropriate for a software startup, but as the software industry continues to mature, values such as productivity and quality will become increasingly important and Japan's software factories can deliver those qualities in spades. In that environment, methods geared to fast moving markets may put you at a disadvantage.

I would give this book five stars if it were more current.