Light Machinery Industries in the 1950s

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The targets this research project tried to investigate are composed of three parts : (1) the situation of light machinery industries represented by cameras, sewing machines, bicycles, watches and so on, and tendency in the foreign markets for those industries, (2) the real situation of networking among wholesale merchants, organizing agents, assemblers, and parts manufacturers in those industries, (3) the process of planning and execution of policies for small business and their effects.As the results of the research, we could show the following points. Firstly the role of public research institutes such as the Osaka Prefectural Industrial Research Institute (OPIRI) and the Osaka Prefectural Institute for Industrial Management (OPIIM) for the development of light machinery industries in the postwar years was extremely large, and those institutes were led by able engineers and researchers who already started their energetic activities before the war. Secondly on the start of export busi … More ness of working tools, those institutes supported its smooth development in cooperation with trade associations and the Osaka Foreign Trade Institute. Thirdly those institutes as well as trade associations and universities took a lead in the establishment of industrial standards that were the preconditions for industrial development afterwards. In sewing machine industry, in particular, the establishment of industrial standards supported the start of mass production with standardization, and the success of the industry in the foreign markets.The establishment of the factory diagnosis system led by the Small Business Agency could be only possible through the intimate interaction between the Osaka Prefectural Government that had experienced the diagnosis activities of the OPIIM before and during the war, and bureaucrats of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry who were seeking for and planning new policies for small business. It could be also pointed out that the activities of management consultants largely contributed to the modernization of light machinery industries paralleled with diffusion of the system of personnel for diagnosis for small business. Less