Defying Japan

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Defying Japan

An analysis of the Millennium Project research program

conducted at Tokyo Institute of Technology

Keywords:

● PET-bottle recycling

● Japanese society

● Project management

● Research & Development

● Information Technology

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Author: Johannes Maarten van Helden

ヨハネスマーテンバンヘルデン

Study: Industrial Engineering and Management Science

Technische Bedrijfswetenschappen (richting IT)

Student number: 0946443

University: University of Groningen, the Netherlands

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Faculty: Faculty of Management and Organization

Faculteit Bedrijfskunde

Primary Supervisor: Prof. dr. ir. J.L. Simons Secondary Supervisor: Drs. M.J. Land

Graduation organization: Tokyo Institute of Technology

東京工業大学

Department: Frontier Collaborative Research Center

フロンティア創造共同研究センター

Research Group: Prof. Y. Naka’s research group

仲プロジエクト

Location: Suzukakedai campus,

Nagatsuta 4259, Yokohama 226-8503, Japan

すずかけ台キャンパス

〒226-8503横浜市緑区長津田町4259日本

Organization’s supervisor: Prof. Y. Naka

仲先生

publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

This report is the sole work of Johannes M. van Helden, prepared for the purpose of fulfilling certain requirements towards obtaining a Master’s degree from the University of Groningen. All information contained in this report has been gathered through research, real life and work experiences and shall be kept confidential.

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Management summary

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the Millennium Project research program conducted at the technical university of Tokyo (Tokyo Institute of Technology – TITech). This collaborative research effort involving academia, government and several private sec-tor companies was initiated in October 2000 by Japan Chemical Innovation Institute (JCII) – a consultative body in the chemical industry. Completion is scheduled for March 2004. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is the sponsor, and TITech’s Prof. Naka is the project manager.

The project’s goal is to develop a “Technological Information Infrastructure” that will take Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to a higher level, by taking the whole value chain into consid-eration and by supporting sustainability analyses of products that are still on the drawing board. The PET-bottle value chain serves as a benchmark problem. This sector would be well served by a Technological Information Infrastructure bolstering integration across the value chain. The skyrocketing growth in the consumption of PET-bottles calls for an inte-grated approach towards recycling. And besides environmental concerns, there are also economical reasons for IT-enabled integration. Japan’s chemical industry – with it’s scat-tered collection of relatively old and small-scale plants – is uncompetitive; consolidation is inescapable if it is to keep afloat.

The analysis was made using a problem oriented, managerial approach. Problem indicators that served as a starting point for research were the project staff’s unfamiliarity with West-ern project management and the apparent lack of cohesion and coordination amongst the research activities heaped together in the Millennium Project. The two-step research scheme suggested by De Leeuw was adopted in order to cope with the ambiguous problem situation. A preliminary research phase (step one) set the stage for the main research phase (step two). Looking at the various problem signals in a multiform way, and categorizing them in a problem signal classification scheme resulted in the following outline for the main research:

• System: The Millennium Project • Problem owner: Prof. Naka.

• Problem owner’s problem: The Millennium Project lacks cohesion and coordination. • Sub-problems:

1. The project’s goal is unclear;

2. the team lacks a coherent workflow; 3. the project organization is elusive.

• Research objective: Assess to what extend the Millennium Project’s lack of cohesion and

coordination can be attributed to Japan-related factors and whether the adoption of Western project management theories could be helpful in orchestrating the project. In the main research phase, the following research methods were used:

• observation during participation in the project;

• interviews with project staff;

• collection of feedback on project work-flow models, made using the IDEF0 methodol-ogy;

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The first three research methods were used in analyzing the Millennium Project problem. This resulted in a list of ten underlying problems:

Unclear goal:

1. The Millennium Project’s stakeholders provide little or no guidance as to what should be accomplished through the project.

2. Prof. Naka’s double agenda for the project (a study of PET-bottle recycling and the de-velopment of MDF, CGU and GPM) only adds to the confusion.

3. The project’s official objective is actually no more than a vague vision. Unclear workflow:

4. There is considerable ambiguity within Naka’s team concerning the Millennium Pro-ject’s workflow, leading to sequential activities being carried out in parallel.

5. Naka’s staff are not very familiar with Western IT-concepts. Elusive organization:

6. The discussion of the Millennium Project’s content during meetings is often not very lively.

7. The consensus-based decision making is time-consuming and leads to a diffusion of individual accountability.

8. Prof. Naka’s management style is too much human oriented, rather than task oriented. 9. There are many parties involved in the Millennium Project, but generally speaking,

their roles are not very specific. 10. There is no project manager.

Next, literature study determined to what extend these problems were specific to Japan. The “Japan-factor” was studied in two phases, focusing firstly on the Japanese society (par-ticularly it’s history, politico-economical arrangements and culture); and secondly on three aspects of business life in Japan: R&D, IT and project management. For each of the ten problems an attempt was made to link the problem to specific characteristics of the Japa-nese society and the JapaJapa-nese way of doing business. All problems were found to be Japan-specific in one way or another. The following explanatory factors were found:

Japan-factors: society:

F1. Japans has a history of isolation, interrupted by efforts to “catch up” with the out-side world, by rapidly importing ideas and technologies.

F2. After the second world war, Japan became a “capitalist developmental state,” featur-ing close cooperation between the public and private sectors, in order to achieve rapid economic growth. This model is fundamentally different from the Western democratic, capitalist states.

F3. In Japan’s political economy, three power groups can be identified: business, bu-reaucracy and the LDP, none of whom is powerful enough to dominate the others. Ultimately, nobody controls Japan.

F4. Japan’s economy is focused on mass-production of manufactured goods.

F5. Government officials have a significant influence on the “private” sector in Japan. Through the credit ordering system, they determine where the investment money goes.

F6. The Japanese have a tradition of keeping up an “official reality” (tatemae), in case expressing reality as you see it (honne) is socially undesirable. This tradition is some-times so strong that it leads to a society where truth is hard to find.

F7. The main purpose of the Japanese education system is to teach children to be “Japa-nese.” Although Japanese students show good scores in math tests, they do not learn to think critically and creatively as much as their colleagues in the West. On average, their English skills are not too good either.

F8. A cultural study found that, as a rule, the Japanese tend to seek consensus, they have a collectivist mindset, try to avoid both uncertainty and loss of face, and appre-ciate competitive hard work.

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F9. A different attitude towards truth is found in Eastern and Western cultures. The lat-ter emphasize logical and analytical thinking, whereas the former think practically and synthetically, putting more value on virtue than on truth.

Japan factors: business:

F10. The Japanese R&D approach concentrates on product development, rather than fun-damental research.

F11. METI has a considerable influence on the nation’s technology development strategy, distributing research funds through pork barrel politics;

F12. Japan lags behind in IT.

F13. Japanese project management – characterized by consensus decision making, un-clear individual responsibilities, a low-profile role for the project manager and strong visions as key coordinating mechanisms – works fine for projects targeted at incre-mental improvements, but is less suitable for innovative, exploratory research pro-jects.

It can be concluded that Prof. Naka is defying Japan in that he is running a fundamental research project, targeted at the development of a new information technology standard, in a country that has an uncompetitive position in both innovative research and IT. He is defying his sponsor METI, which, in spite of lip-service to the importance of IT, has different political priorities. Moreover, METI civil servants, who are no experts in the field of IT, still assess the research proposals of Prof. Naka. Furthermore, the Japanese project management approach used in the Millennium Project is not very suitable for innovative, exploratory research projects. And finally, Naka’s project demands critical, creative thinking on high levels of abstraction. Many of the Japanese staff are still a bit uncomfortable with that, because of their education and cultural background.

Many of the Millennium Project’s problems are beyond Naka’s control. He cannot change society. He cannot change culture. And he cannot change METI. But he can change the way he responds to the situation. A few recommendations for Prof. Naka, on controllable issues:

• Naka’s vision for the future of the chemical industry in Japan makes sense. Many au-thors (Porter, for one) agree with him that Japan should focus more on the productiv-ity and integration potential of information technology. But this is more or less a new area of business for Japan. Naka’s team should explore this new field step by step. It would be wise to supplement the vision with more concrete, short term goals. These should be realistically attainable.

• It is also advised that Prof. Naka make a more detailed planning, with milestones and deliverables scheduled along a timeline. This will help monitor whether the project is still on course. Now, there is only one deadline each year in March: the reporting to METI. And for METI civil servants, a vague tatemae report will do. However, for his own control of the project, working with concrete milestones might be useful to Prof. Naka.

• However deplorable it may be that sponsors for research on the MDF, CGU and GPM concepts are hard to find, developing these concepts in projects that officially study a different topic (through a double agenda) is not a good workaround. It would be wiser to make the best of the Millennium Project, focusing on the PET-recycling case. If the project is to be successful, there should be no constraints in advance as to what theo-retical concepts are to be used.

• Staff members should be given more specific tasks, based on their strengths and weak-nesses. Most staff have a lot of valuable expertise in their own domain, but limited data modeling and IT skills. Some others are data modeling or IT experts. In this situa-tion, it would be wise to let experienced data modelers do the modeling, based on information they “extract” from their expert colleagues through interviews. This division of tasks is recommended in the IDEF0 methodology.

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• If team members each have more specific tasks and responsibilities, there is less need for meetings involving the whole team. Transferring tasks and responsibilities from the group as a whole to individual team members, would yield a significant productivity improvement.

• Finally, the division of tasks also calls for a more pro-active role of the project man-ager, Prof. Naka. He could personally contribute a lot to the cohesion and coordination of the Millennium Project. For one thing, it would be very helpful if he could spend more time disseminating his own domain-knowledge amongst the staff.

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Acknowledgements: ありがとう!

The first time I realized that there was no way back, was on my way to Tokyo, when I saw on the flight-tracking that we were flying over Groningen. I had no idea what I was letting my self in for. If I would have known, I doubt whether I would have boarded the plane. It’s been quite a project. This paper argues that, in the Millennium Project, Prof. Naka is defy-ing Japan. But the title also indicates that in a way, I had to defy Japan myself too. But now that my printer is spitting out the pages of this report, I am glad that I did it. My Ja-pan-experience has been a exiting and educating time that I will never forget. Makes me feel satisfied. And thankful.

I am thankful to Prof. Naka and all the other colleagues at Tokyo Institute of Technology, for offering me the unique opportunity to do an internship with them, and for their will-ingness to help me with interviews and whatever else I needed. A special word of thanks to the students, who kept me company during lunch-breaks and organized a welcome-party and bye-bye-party for me. I am also thankful to my supervisors in Groningen, Prof. Simons and Mr. Land, for their coaching and flexibility during this international enterprise.

A very special thank-you to Iwao and Emi Matsumoto, for their overwhelming hospitality. The home-stay with them has been the success factor of my time in Japan. Iwao, thank you for showing me around the country and teaching me so much about data modeling and Japan. And Emi, thank you for your delicious cooking and warm heart.

I would also like to thank my family for their love and support, and the unforgettable holiday we spent in Tokyo and Kyoto. In particular I would like to thank my dad, who has been my primary coach and critic throughout the project.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my friends, who stayed in touch trough more than 600 e-mails. In particular, I would like to thank Marianne for being my prime contact with the Netherlands, Henri for looking after our business Newlore while I was abroad, and Matthias for being such an inspiring Christian.

Most of all, I would like to thank God, who made His presence felt during the tough mo-ments as well as the fun and exiting ones. I saw some of His love reflected in the kindness of all the people I encountered last year. And it was Jesus who taught me the most impor-tant lesson in Japan:

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

(Luke 9:24)

Once again: どうもありがとうございます!

Groningen, 12 December 2002, Johannes M. van Helden

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1 Introduction

This paper is the result of an internship with Prof. Yuji Naka’s research group at Tokyo In-stitute of Technology, Japan. The author worked with Prof. Naka and his team of fifteen researchers from November 2001 to April 2002. During the internship, an analysis was made of the so-called Millennium Project – Naka’s main research project at the time. The results of this study will be presented in the following chapters. In this chapter, the Millen-nium Project (not to be confused with projects targeted at tackling the Y2K millenMillen-nium problem) and its background will be introduced. Paragraph 1.1 kicks off with an introduc-tion of Prof. Naka’s research group. Paragraph 1.2 touches upon the main issues facing the chemical industry in Japan today. This sets the stage for a brief account in paragraph 1.3 of the developments that led up to the launching of the Millennium Project. It will be ex-plained in paragraph 1.4 that the project focuses on the PET-bottle value chain as a benchmark problem. The specific contribution that Naka’s researchers hope to make to-wards a more sustainable development of the PET-bottle industry will be the topic of para-graph 1.5. Parapara-graph 1.6 highlights a few interesting aspects of the project’s organization, and finally, paragraph 1.7 makes the connection with the next chapter, by briefly indicat-ing what problem signals gave rise to the research approach presented in chapter 2.

1.1 Professor Naka’s research group at Tokyo Institute of

Technology

Tokyo Institute of Technology (TITech) is considered Japan’s most prestigious technical university. Founded in 1881 as Tokyo Vocational School and later upgraded to a university in 1929, TITech today educates 9700 students in the field of science and technology.1 TITech’s three missions are: “producing individuals of excellent capability,” “creation of enhanced intellectual properties” and “contribution to society.” As part of its “contribution to society,” the Institute has set up the Frontier Collaborative Research Center. This center conducts collaborative research with industries and public research organizations “for the purpose of establishing new research fields and creating new businesses.” It also aims to “educate young researchers in creativity and entrepreneurship.”2

Prof. Naka’s research group is working in the Process Systems Engineering Laboratory,3_{the chemical engineering division of Frontier} Collaborative Research Center, located at TITech’s Suzukakedai campus, approximately 40 kilometers west of central Tokyo. Prof. Naka is a leading scientist in his field. He published a book titled: “Introduction to VLSI process engineering.”4_{His research group} published 9 papers since 1996, a.o. in the journals “Computers & Chemical Engineering” and “Journal of Chemical Engineering of Ja-pan.”5_{And with researchers from India, Egypt, South Korea and Japan,} the team is truly international. Although this leads to occasional language difficulties (the prevailing language is Japanese), the working climate is characterized by good-fellowship. The group is supported by excellent hardware, software and catering facilities.

Naka’s team works on modeling concepts and simulation tools for the chemical industry. During the last few years, concepts and systems were developed to enhance process plant safety. Recently, attention has shifted towards recycling and integration within the chemi-cal value chain. A leitmotiv connecting the team’s various research projects is Prof. Naka’s

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dedication to the development of three homegrown theoretical concepts: CGU, MDF and GPM. A brief introduction of these concepts will be given below.

Firstly, CGU stands for Controlled Group Unit. Naka’s group started developing this con-cept about seven years ago. The basic idea behind it is that a chemical plant can be concep-tually divided into smaller parts, which each perform a certain function. The controlling element is also included in this subset – hence the term Controlled Group Unit. In turn, each CGU can be split up again, until one gets CGU’s which perform only one basic func-tion. One fundamental difference with traditional ways of looking at a chemical plant is that components are defined based on the function they perform as a whole, rather than distinguishing between technical parts such as valves, reactors and the like. Another char-acteristic of the CGU concept is that “control” is not treated as a separate entity. The con-trolling function is consistently grouped with the operational function on each aggregation level.

The MDF (Multi Dimensional Formalism) concept was developed out of Naka’s MDOOM (Multi Dimensional Object Oriented Model), shortly after work had started on the CGU idea. Using this concept, basic unit processes in a chemical plant can be seen as having three dimensions:

• structure (detailed technical specifications);

• management (input and control from outside);

• behavior (physical behavior and chemical reactions taking place).

GPM is an abbreviation for Generic Product Model. This concept (the youngest of the three) is being developed in association with AIE, an affiliated software company. It can be used to implement data models, combining unit processes into one model. The concept is similar – albeit more advanced – to STEP, a worldwide standard for the exchange of prod-uct data that is currently under development.6

1.2 The chemical industry in Japan

Prof. Naka’s involvement in Japan’s chemical industry calls for a brief introduction to this sector. The picture is somewhat gloomy: the chemical industry in Japan (which employs more than one million people) is in the doldrums. Figure 2 shows that profitability in the sector has plummeted during the last decade. The country’s market share is eroding as well. Although Japan still claimed a sizeable 18% of the world’s chemical market in 1998,7 72% of Japan’s chemical industries have lost market share since the pre-1990 peak.8

Figure 2: Japanese chemicals profitability index (Yen). Source: Chem Systems.

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Japan has been unable to benefit from the tremendous surge in demand for che-micals in China. In spite of a 9-10% annual demand growth rate in the People’s Republic,9_{the production of} Japan’s chemical industry has stabilized during the 1990’s, at a yearly shipment value of approximately ¥ 23 million (figure 3). The com-paratively low transportation costs for shipments from Japan to China simply do not outweigh the high costs of production in Japan.

Several factors make Japan’s chemical industry uncompetitive:

• the industry is fragmented – there are numerous players in the market, and they often compete in the same segment, because they lack a clear definition of their core busi-nesses;

• it serves a saturated domestic market and needs to find export growth opportunities;

• chemical plants in Japan are relatively old and small-scale;

• the construction of new, large plants in Japan cannot be justified because of high land and labor costs;

• Japan’s natural resources are limited, which means it does not have access to chemical feedstock.10

Return on capital in the chemical industry is low (7% on average) and the costs of initial investments are relatively high. The need to create cost efficiencies through economies of scale, has led to industry consolidation and restructuring throughout the world.11_Japan saw two mergers in the 1990s: the creation of Mitsubishi Chemicals in 1994 and Mitsui Chemicals in 1997. Productivity increased during the last decade, as production remained constant in spite of a 9% decrease in the number of people employed.12_{But this has clearly} not been enough. The fact that a major consolidation has thus far failed to materialize in Japan, may be partly explained by the country’s “lifetime employment” tradition. Rather than firing employees, the Japanese try to find alternatives, for instance by developing new fields of business and moving people around.13_{Alternatively, other forms of efficiency} gains are being explored, such as integration across the supply chain.

1.3 The Millennium Project initiated by JCII

The initiator of the Millennium Project research program is the Japan Chemical Innovation Institute (JCII). The institute was established in March 1998, its mission being:

“…to promote the sustainable development of society and the rein-forcement of international competitiveness of the Japanese industry.”14

The two-fold goal is to be achieved through collaboration between chemical companies, academia and government. JCII believes that if the three parties work together on the de-velopment of basic technologies for industrial applications, and if the findings of corporate product developers lead to new basic research by academia, this will have an “upward spi-ral” effect on the development of science and technology. The institute acknowledges the need for structural reforms in the Japanese chemical industry, but when it comes to lead-ing the sector out of its current malaise, it puts its hopes on technological breakthroughs.

15,000,000 17,000,000 19,000,000 21,000,000 23,000,000 25,000,000 27,000,000 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999

Figure 3: Value of shipments Japanese chemical industry (mln Yen). Source: METI.

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The roadmap for change envisaged by JCII is depicted in figure 4. A major target is to achieve dramatic improvements in the efficiency of various value creating activities. Here, the development of a “Chemical Highway” plays a pivotal role. The goal of this “highway” is:

“…the sharing and comprehensive systematization of information re-garding chemical technology.”15

In the Millennium Project, TITech academics work together with scientists from the private sector to actually develop the “Chemical Highway,” with JCII playing a significant mediat-ing role. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is the project’s main sponsor.16_{Besides “Chemical Highway,” the term “Technological Information} Infra-structure” is also often used to describe the project’s goal. However, to make this rather vague objective more specific, it was decided that work should begin on a concrete case: the PET-bottle value chain.17_{The project manager, Prof. Naka, believes that the} “Techno-logical Information Infrastructure” could prove its usefulness in leveraging a more sustain-able development of the PET-bottle industry. Using the PET-bottle value chain as a bench-mark problem also made the project more interesting to METI and other stakeholders, most of whom are players in the chemical industry.

1.4 The PET-bottle recycling case

With PET-bottle recycling taking center stage at the Suzukakedai-based research group, it is worthwhile to have a closer look at the sustainability issue. A widely accepted definition of sustainable development is:

“Meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”18

In this respect, two environmental issues are increasingly a source of concern to the public and legislators: waste management and the need for resource conservation. Some of the solutions proposed for solving these problems are:

• reduction of “excessive” packaging for marketing aesthetics;

• re-use (e.g. the bottle collection system in the Netherlands);

• recycling (e.g. the recycling of plastic from discarded bottles);

• recovery (both feedstock recovery through chemical means and energy recovery from the incineration of municipal solid waste).

Figure 4: JCII's roadmap, termed new chemical science and technology system. Source: JCII

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These solutions are not as straightforward as they might appear. For instance, packaging is not always as “excessive” as consumers might think; it is often designed to fulfill a protec-tive function during transportation. Also, re-use of bottles is not as environmentally friendly as many would like to believe. The bottle cleaning process costs a lot of energy and water. Moreover, reusable bottles must be heavier than disposable ones, to survive a large number of trips. Thus, they require a relatively large amount of energy for their production and transportation. In contrast to public opinion, incineration of waste is not as bad as it seems – it can replace other non-renewable sources of fuel for power generation.

The public’s simplistic perception of environmental issues might inhibit the implementation of an optimized solution to the problems. Environmental legislation often reflects political priorities (based on public concern), rather than a comprehensive analysis of all the rele-vant factors. For instance, Japan effected laws designed to promote recycling and waste reduction in the late 1990s. Judged by the significant increase in the proportion of PET-bottles that are being recycled, these laws have been effective (figure 5). Nonetheless, Prof. Naka argues that the government’s approach will not achieve optimum results, since it is based on a narrow “waste management” point of view. He advocates a broader “life cycle” approach to PET-recycling, which takes the whole value chain (depicted in figure 6) into

0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000 300000 350000 400000 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 volume collected bottles (tons) production (tons) Figure 5: Growth of PET-bottle production and recycling in Japan. Source: Japan PET Bottle Association

Resin Bottle Beverage

Market Collection Incineration Treatment for Recycling Other Industrial Sectors

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consideration.19_{In order to make such a comprehensive analysis possible, an information} platform must be developed on which all the processes in the value chain can be inte-grated. It is towards the development of this platform that the Millennium Project aims to make a contribution.

1.5 The Millennium Project’s aspirations

Prof. Naka describes the Millennium Project’s goal as follows:

“Lay the foundations, based on manufacturing recycling technologies, that will allow for an examination of plastic life-cycle technology.”20

He argues that whereas the currently available Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is a valuable tool when appraising the sustainability of existing products, is provides no sup-port to developers wishing to estimate the environmental impact of products that are still on the drawing board. The Millennium Project can be seen as an attempt to fill this gap. It intends to take Life Cycle Assessment to a higher level, by facilitating environmental impact analyses during the design phase of a product, and by enlarging the focus of the LCA methodology to include the whole value chain (including recycling), rather just concentrat-ing on the product. This of course is an ambitious target. The team has already identified a number of complications. Defining a standard format for the description of Life Cycle In-ventory (LCI) data, for instance, is a major challenge. STEP is a promising development in this connection, but this standard is still in its infancy. The need for standardization is hard felt, all the more so since modeling a whole value chain involves the integration of data from highly diverse processes – ranging from the continuous flow of feedstock in chemical plants to the batch-wise collection of discarded bottles.

Two complicating factors more specific to the PET-bottle case are also noteworthy in this connection. Firstly, legislation on waste collection and recycling is enacted locally in Japan, leading to considerable differences in recycling schemes amongst the country’s municipali-ties (ku). Secondly, the production of PET-bottles shows a peak during the summer, when the production rate is four times as high as during the winter season. This cyclical pattern can be attributed largely to the higher consumption level of drinks during the hot summer months. The cyclical supply of feedstock, however, is difficult to handle in large scale con-tinuous process plants.

Considering the complexity involved with the integration of all the information that is rele-vant to designing more sustainable value chains, Naka et. al. (2001) advocate a paradigm shift towards what they call “Life Cycle Engineering (LCE):”

“Life Cycle Engineering provides industrial information infrastructure and methodologies, and supports various engineering views necessary to solve problems involved in all engineering processes from product design to its demolishment via manufacturing.”21

Life Cycle Engineering calls for three enabling technologies:

• a data warehouse;

• distributed computing;

• information models.

Technical experts in the Millennium Project team work in parallel on all three of these is-sues.

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So-called unit processes are the basic building blocks of the Technological Information Infrastructure. Naka’s team seeks to develop uniform ways of describing the heterogeneous processes in different industrial sectors. Ultimately, the researchers envision a situation where all business information is shared by all firms in the supply chain, with individual companies keeping only strategic management information to themselves (figure 7). Based on the above, the conclusion can be drawn that the Millennium Project is concerned with fundamental research rather than product development. It aims to develop a new technological standard that will benefit the chemical sector as a whole. It is funded by METI (that is: public money) and the outcomes of the project are publicly available. Prod-uct development projects are geared towards using existing technology and private money to give a particular company a competitive edge.

1.6 The Millennium Project organization

An introduction to the Millennium Project would not be complete without a few remarks on its organization. As said, METI is the main sponsor. But the project has many other stakeholders as well – it is a collaborative effort involving academia, government and in-dustry. The private sector plays an important role. Not only are companies in the PET-bottle value chain potential customers of the project’s outcomes, they also serve as a pri-mary source of information. Hence, industry partners have been involved from the begin-ning. Four companies actively contribute by seconding a research employee to work on the project: Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation; Nittsu (a logistics company); Toyoseka (a PET-bottle manufacturer); and Yokogawa (a producer of measurement instruments and a proc-ess industry system integrator). The private industry researchers on Naka’s team are em-ployed by JCII, the costs of their salaries being split by METI and their original employers. Besides these four firms, a dozen other companies (amongst them beverage businesses like Coca Cola and Santori) have a say through their participation in the PET-bottle Life Cycle Committee. The Society of Chemical Engineering in Japan (SCEJ) and the Millennium Pro-ject steering group play an advisory role.

Figure 8 shows the Millennium Project in relation to JCII, TITech and other stakeholders involved. However, the suggestion of a clear organization chart is illusive. A model com-posed of overlapping circles would be more to the point. In Japan, interpersonal relation-ships are very important, whereas organizational structures are complex and ambiguous. In practice, the project’s progress is regularly discussed in various consultative bodies. Deci-sions are made on the basis of consensus, rather than the authority of responsible manag-ers. That said, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has a decisive influ-ence, since it determines the project’s yearly budget.22

Level 1: Data Warehouse Level 2: Simulation Module Level 3: Engineering modules Level 4: Management Module Level 5: Strategic management

Common TII Individual TII Private Common Business Model Layer

Public & Private DB layer Tool & Solver Layer

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All fifteen members of Naka’s team are involved in the Millennium Project. The JCII-employed staff (amongst them the private industry researchers) work on it full-time. The three professors and three research associates on TITech’s payroll spend only part of their time working on the project – they have other research and education duties as well. The topics studied by the four students in Naka’s team are only indirectly related to the Millen-nium Project.

The JCII project staff each use their expertise in a specific area of business to model a cer-tain part of the PET-bottle value chain. Where necessary, they collect supplemental field data. The academic project members contribute mainly by putting forward theoretical con-cepts previously developed within Naka’s research group. During regular meetings, the team members attempt to orchestrate their activities and share visions of the “Technologi-cal Information Infrastructure” to which their efforts should eventually lead.

The Millennium Project was initiated in October 2000. The team publishes an intermediate report each year in March. The latest report, however, is still a somewhat rambling account of high level ambitions on several technological fronts. Staff generally agree that the Mil-lennium Project will have to get more concrete and coherent, if it is to be successfully com-pleted before its scheduled deadline in March 2004.23

1.7 Problem

indication

When setting up a research plan for the internship with Prof. Naka’s research group at TITech, the following difficulties were encountered:

• The organization of the research group is in many ways different from ordinary busi-ness situations. Moreover, during the first series of exploratory interviews, research staff answered questions concerning the Millennium Project’s goal, deliverable, cus-tomers and business process evasively and ambiguously. Therefore, understanding the context in which the research was to take place, was not straightforward.

• Prof. Naka did not provide a problem description to start from – the subject of the in-ternship was left to the researcher’s own discretion.

METI

Frontier CRC Naka team

PET bottle life cycle committee steering com-mittee TITech SCEJ METI JCII

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After a preliminary analysis of Naka’s research group, it was decided to limit the scope of the research to the Millennium Project – the group’s main project at the time of the intern-ship. And as for the research approach: already during the first phase of the internship, the impression arose that the research group was unfamiliar with Western project management methods. It was also observed that the research activities heaped together in the Millen-nium Project lacked cohesion and coordination. Project staff were uncertain about their specific task and had difficulty indicating how their work contributed to the project’s main goal. Considering these signals, it was decided that that a practical, managerial, problem oriented research approach was to be adopted. In the next chapter, a detailed research plan based on this approach will be worked out.

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2 Research design

In this chapter the research design will be presented. Following the approach suggested by De Leeuw (1996), the research has been conducted in two phases: a preliminary research phase and a main research phase. These will be dealt with in the paragraphs 2.2 and 2.4, respectively. The two phases are connected by an intermediate report (paragraph 2.3), which specifies the research objective and research questions. But first, paragraph 2.1 ex-plains why De Leeuw’s two-step approach was adopted.

2.1 Two-step

approach

According to Verschuren and Doorewaard (2001), research is:

“…a stretched line of reasoning, leading to answers to predetermined questions.”

They argue that a research project should be embedded in the context in which it takes place. It should, for instance, correspond to earlier research in the same field. De Leeuw (1996) gives a definition of the more specific case of research in the field of management studies:

“Research in the field of management studies is designing solutions to managerial problems.”

In his definition, De Leeuw highlights a distinctive feature of this type of research: its prob-lem oriented approach. The research is embedded in its context, through its focus on actual problems in the real world.

Verschuren and Doorewaard contend that, when setting up a research plan, one should work from back to front. The starting point is the desired outcome of the research project, which is stated in the research objective. They list seven possible research objectives (figure 9). A study using the approach suggested by management studies is a kind of practical

Theory testing Theory development Problem signaling Diagnosis Design Change Evaluation Theoretical research Practical research Research

Figure 9: A classification of research objectives. Source: Verschuren and Doorewaard (2001).

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research. De Leeuw adds that two types of questions should be answered when conducting a research: content questions and methodology questions. The first are of the type “What do I want to know?;” the latter like: “How can I find out?”

As said in paragraph 1.7, the staff’s ambiguity concerning the Millennium Project’s objective and the apparent lack of coordination of the various research activities lumped together in the project served as a starting point for a problem oriented, managerial research. But it was difficult to come to a clear problem statement, based on the incoherent collection of problem signals gathered in the initial phase of the internship. To cope with problem-solving situations in which the problem is ambiguous, De Leeuw suggests a two-step research approach. It features a preliminary research (the first step), in which the scope and objective are determined for the main research (step two). One can say that during the preliminary research phase, the researcher seeks to answer the question: “What do I want to know?” The outcomes of this phase (the problem statement, research objective and re-search questions) are listed in an intermediate report – an important milestone. The question “How do I find out?” subsequently triggers the design of a research approach for the main research phase.

Based on De Leeuw’s two-step scheme, an outline for the research project was drawn up (figure 10). It shows the preliminary research phase (elaborated in paragraph 2.2), the intermediate report (incorporated as paragraph 2.3), and the main research phase, the design of which will be dealt with in paragraph 2.4. Activities are depicted as boxes; reports as rounded boxes.

2.2 Preliminary research

In this paragraph, the research method used in the preliminary research phase will be elu-cidated (the outcomes of this phase will be presented in the next paragraph). The approach (depicted graphically in figure 11) was not based on a specific theoretical methodology as much as it was the result of the researcher’s own creativity in a trial and error process. Such pragmatism in setting up a research plan is not uncommon in the first phase of a re-search project.

The first methodological remark has to do with the choice of the research type (the second step in figure 11). Figure 9 lists the alternative research types identified by Verschuren and Doorewaard. As said in paragraph 1.7, a practical, problem solving approach was chosen. More specifically, an attempt will be made to complete the first two phases: “problem sig-naling” and “diagnosis.” This corresponds to the “analysis” phase in De Leeuw’s “analysis-design-change” triad. The study was limited to the “analysis” phase because of the com-plexity and ambiguity of the problem situation.

intermediate report

final report (concept)

final report introduce internship +

background

preliminary research

main research

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intermediate report o problem owner o problem o objective o questions o constraints o conceptual theory areas

state research questions choose research type

collect problem signals

determine problem owner define problem areas

determine controllability draw problem signal classification scheme

state constraints

state problem

state research objective determine conceptual

theory areas

determine lenses determine partial problems determine scope

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Having chosen a research type, the next step in the preliminary research consisted of a stock-taking of the problem signals collected through exploratory interviews and observa-tions. The full list of problem signals can be found in appendix 1.

During the following steps, a problem signal classification scheme was used to sort out the heterogeneous collection of problem signals. It has been inserted as figure 12. On the vertical axis, three problem areas were defined. The absence of clear targets and mile-stones indicated that a part of the problem might be found in the field of project

manage-ment. The unfamiliarity of several project members with theoretical concepts used in

Naka’s group (like MDF, CGU and GPM 24_{) showed that knowledge management might be} an issue as well. In later interviews with Prof. Naka it became clear that partnership

man-agement was also an area of concern, the relationship with METI in particular troubling his

mind.

On the horizontal axis, a classification often seen in matrix organizations was used. These organizations (Shell is one example) distinguish their operations by the region (e.g. US, Europe, Asia), product (e.g. gasoline, chemicals) and function (e.g. marketing, production, R&D). Applying this triad to the Naka team situation resulted in the following classifica-tion: Japan (the region); IT (an “information infrastructure” is the desired product) and R&D (Naka’s staff perform a research and development function). Because not all man-agement problems can be related to a specific region, product or function, a “general” category was added to the horizontal axis as well.

Next, all the problems identified during interviews with project staff were allocated to the fields in the matrix. For instance, the fact that decision making in Naka’s group is slow be-cause it is based on consensus, was considered to be a project management problem. Ac-cording to many authors on Japan, it is also a typically Japanese phenomenon.25_{Thus, this} problem was listed in the project management/Japan field.

Prof. Naka was identified as the problem owner, since as the project manager he is ulti-mately responsible. Thus, the problem will be formulated from his point of view. More im-portantly, the choice of the problem owner determines which problems are controllable and which are not. For instance, Prof. Naka has to accept the fact that METI provides little or no feedback with respect to the content of the Millennium Project, but does bother him

categories general 5 - 1 È region: Japan 3 - 4 È product: IT 1 - 0 È function: R&D 2 - 1 È mgt. theories

project mgt.

8 - 0 Æ

A1 project mgt general

P1 Project goal ambitious - 1 P6 Sequential / parallel - 2 P11 No minutes of meetings - 2

A2 project mgt Japan

P8 Human oriented mgt. style – 3 P9 No project manager - 3 P10 consensus, decisions slow - 2

A3 project mgt IT

P7 No clear workflow - 2 A4 project mgt R&D P3 Unclear goal - 1

knowledge mgt.

2 - 3 Æ

A5 knowledge mgt general P5 MDF, CGU not understood

P12 Insuff. dissemination knowl.

P17 language problems

A6 knowledge mgt Japan

P13 Staff unfamiliar data model A7 knowledge mgt IT A8 knowledge mgt R&D A15 Staff different backgrounds

partnership mgt.

1 - 3 Æ

A9 partnership mgt general A10 partnership mgt Japan

P2 METI uninterested sponsor P14 Beyond 1 yr budget uncertain P21 Many partners involved

A11 partnership mgt IT A12 partnership mgt R&D

P4 Double agenda

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with a load of bureaucratic paperwork concerning minor details (problem P2). Problems outside Naka’s span of control were not incorporated in the problem study, in which an at-tempt was made to identify the underlying problem leading to the problem signals. How-ever, these problems were considered useful in obtaining a deeper insight into the back-ground and nature of the problem situation. In the problem classification scheme, uncon-trollable problems are shown in a gray font.

The scheme was then used to, as De Leeuw puts it, look at the problems in a multiform way. Counting the number of problems in each row, it was found that a large majority of the problems could be considered project management issues. Doing the same exercise for the columns gave rise to the impression that in many cases, the problem could be related to the region (Japan). It was concluded that, for this research, project management and Japan were the most promising fields of literature study. Japan is particularly interesting as a source of background information, since many uncontrollable problems (used in this re-search as a source of deeper insight) are Japan-related. Partnership management was not considered a relevant theory area after all; it contains only one controllable problem (P4) which is very closely related to problem P3, a project management issue. Knowledge

man-agement was also abandoned as a theory area. The two problems it contains (P12 and P5)

are only remotely related to the other problems and were therefore dropped from the prob-lem study. The columns IT and R&D, finally, contain some of the most pressing probprob-lems. Therefore, IT and R&D were also designated relevant theory areas for the main research phase.

But even with a whole range of problems identified and categorized in the problem signal classification scheme, clues as to what might be the core problem underneath the surface did not yet emerge. Yes, project management is a main issue, but this explanation alone leaves many questions unanswered. Why, for instance, had Naka’s men set themselves such an ambitious and ambiguous target? Initially, the author’s unfamiliarity with chemistry in general and with concepts developed by Prof. Naka’s team in particular were blamed for the difficulty experienced in grasping the essence of the Millennium Project. But during the internship, it dawned upon him that his Japanese colleagues did not make much sense of their project’s content either. Considering TITech’s standing and the fact that Prof. Naka and his team have received worldwide recognition for their contributions to science, this lack of understanding had to be caused by organizational rather than intellectual factors. But if – as staff generally agreed – project management was the team’s weak spot, why was nobody doing anything about it? Indeed, why was Prof. Naka himself not showing more leadership? And what withheld the project’s sponsor METI from intervening?

There was no getting around it: project management was not all of the problem, and sim-ply suggesting a few Western best practices in this field (e.g. Wijnen et. al., 1996) would not help Prof. Naka much. Nothing less than a thorough investigation into the background of the Millennium Project would yield deeper insights into the root cause of the problem. The author would have to set foot on uncharted territory: a study of the Japanese back-ground of the Millennium Project might yield valuable explanations for the inscrutable situation at Suzukakedai. In interviews, colleagues also pointed in that direction, with re-marks such as: “yes, it’s a complicated situation; this is Japan” and: “this whole state of af-fairs in the Millennium Project team – it’s just like the entanglements in Japanese politics.” Thus, of the two key theory areas identified with the help of the problem signal classifica-tion scheme, most emphasis would be put on “Japan.”

It was decided that the “Japan factor” would be analyzed in two phases; the first phase be-ing a broad orientation of Japan’s history, political economy and culture; and the second phase taking a closer look at a few aspects more directly related to the Millennium Project. Here the problem signal classification scheme came in useful once again, this time not to determine what the problem was, but as a source of suggestions indicating where to look

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for explanations for this problem. Since “R&D”; “IT” and “project management” had been identified as relevant theory areas (besides “Japan”), it was considered to be only natural to use these three as “lenses” with which to focus the study of the Millennium Project’s Japanese background.

Before going into this background more deeply, however, the question: “what exactly is wrong with the Millennium Project?” will have to be addressed. The problem signals col-lected in the problem signal classification scheme will be subjected to further analysis and conceptualization. After that, and after having completed the literature study on Japan, this paper concludes with a few remarks on the applicability of Western project manage-ment theories in the Millennium Project situation and with recommendations for improve-ment. The methodology used in the main research phase will be discussed in paragraph 2.4, where this second research step will be introduced. But first, paragraph 2.3 lists the re-sults of the now completed preliminary research phase.

2.3 Preliminary report

Below, the decisions that were taken in the preliminary research phase will be summed up. Starting with decisions already made in paragraph 1.7: the research type considered to be most appropriate in this situation is:

a practical, managerial, problem oriented research; with the scope of the research limited to:

the Millennium Project. Having pointed out the problem owner,

Professor Naka,

in paragraph 2.2, the next step was to determine the problem owner’s business goal. This was not straightforward, because the Millennium Project is a cooperative project involving many partners, and it was difficult to assess exactly what interest each of these partners had in the project. Prof. Naka is not a manager in that he is the owner of the project who can set the research agenda. He functions more as a host to the researchers from various companies, and as the team’s main source of technical know-how. There is still consider-able confusion and disagreement concerning the specifications of the desired output. In a way, this uncertainty about the project target is characteristic for fundamental research; re-searchers cannot exactly specify the deliverables of a project in advance, because they are exploring new fields of science. But it is safe to say that Prof. Naka and his team all hope to achieve tangible results in the form of published papers and working simulation tools that will receive recognition around the globe. There is no debate about the available resources and staff: the current team will have to do the job with no more than the financial means they now have at their disposal. With these considerations in mind, Prof. Naka’s business goal was defined as follows:

Maximize tangible research results… given the constraints imposed by:

…working with the current staff, skills, partners and budget.

The problem signal study described in paragraph 2.2 lead to the following description of Prof. Naka’s problem:

The Millennium Project lacks cohesion and coordination.

Amongst team members, a lack of clarity concerning their personal deliverables was ob-served, as well as an unclear view of the way their work contributes to the total project.

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This sub-optimal use of human resources is one of the main reasons why the project is not yielding material results timely. In other words, the Millennium Project’s slow progress is due not to a lack of scientific skills, but to inadequate project management. This statement is further supported by the following:

• A STN literature citation study showed that Prof. Naka and his research group are ca-pable, respected scientists in their field. This indicates that the hitherto disappointing results of the Millennium Project can be attributed to a lack of good project manage-ment, rather than a lack of scientific capabilities.

• The Millennium Project staff showed a remarkable interest in a general presentation on research design, held by the author of this paper. A structured, step-wise approach to research (e.g. the Verschuren and Doorewaard scheme) was something new to them.

• During a phase in the research where data on current project planning practices were collected through feedback on IDEF activity models, project members confirmed that such an analysis was purposeful and that project planning was indeed their weak spot. To make the problem definition more specific, the problem was de-aggregated into a set of three sub-problems. This was done by grouping the controllable problems in the project management category, as shown by the numbers behind the problems in figure 12. The conceptualization resulted in the triad of sub-problems listed below:

11. The Millennium Project’s goal is not clearly defined.

12. Work on the project is not planned and organized according to a clear workflow. 13. The project organization is elusive; there is a lot of ambiguity as to which organizations

are involved, how they cooperate and how the project is managed.

The research project presented in this paper aims to make a contribution towards resolving these problems. To avoid jumping to conclusions in a complex, unfamiliar situation, the target is to make a comprehensive study of the Millennium Project’s Japanese background. The research objective is formulated as follows:

Assess to what extend the Millennium Project’s lack of cohesion and co-ordination can be attributed to Japan-related factors and whether the adoption of Western project management theories could be helpful in orchestrating the project.

Which translates to the this research question:

To what extend can the Millennium Project’s lack of cohesion and coor-dination be attributed to Japan-related factors, and to what extend could Western project management theories be helpful in orchestrating the project?

After using interviews to make a thorough analysis of the three sub-problems, much of the research work will consist of literature study. “Japan” was designated as the main theory

area. “R&D”; “IT” and “project management” were picked as lenses with which to focus the

literature study on the Japaneseness of the problem. Finally, the research sub-questions are the following: 1. What are the causes of the Millennium Project’s

unclear goal; unclear workflow;

and elusive organization?

2. What is the

historical;

politico-economical;

and cultural background against which the Millennium Project is carried out?

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3. To what extend can the Millennium Project’s underperformance be attributed to a typi-cally Japanese approach towards

R&D; IT;

and project management?

4. To what extend could Western project management theories be helpful in improving the project’s productivity?

This set of questions for the main research phase concludes the preliminary report. In the next paragraph, the methods used to find answers to these questions will be introduced.

2.4 Main research

In this paragraph, the methodology behind the main research phase will be discussed. Fig-ure 13 provides a bird’s eye view of the research approach. The dotted lines indicate which part of the research answers which research question. Each of these parts will be discussed in a separate chapter in this report.

When trying to find causes of the Millennium Project’s lack of cohesion and coordination (question 1), three research methods were used. One of them was participation in the pro-ject. Sitting in on meetings, joining informal discussions and walking around the work floor yielded valuable observations. In addition to that, a number of papers published by Naka’s research group were studied to better understand what the group wants to accomplish through the Millennium Project, and why its aspirations were so ambiguously phrased. This literature study yielded a deeper insight into the group’s research history as well. The desk research phase also focused on several modeling tools and data representation languages used by the group, particularly IDEF and XML.26_{This was done to gain a better} understand-ing of current system development practices used within the Millennium Project.

Despite significant language difficulties, the most educating research strategy was a series of interviews with project staff. All project members were interviewed in different stages of the project, a few key people more frequently than others. In the case of the second sub-problem (unclear workflow), the interviews were supported by a workflow modeling cycle. Based on information collected in interviews, a model was made of the current approach of the Millennium Project, using the multi-layered IDEF0 modeling language.27_{This model} was then disseminated to all staff, with the request to comment on it. Their feedback was then assimilated into a next revision of the model. This feedback loop brought in a lot of valuable information.

The outcomes of the problem analysis will be presented in chapter 3. A separate paragraph will be dedicated to each of the three sub-problems (unclear goal, unclear workflow, elu-sive organization).

As motivated in paragraph 2.2, desk research was used to assess the Japaneseness of the problem situation. One can say that it is the problem oriented, multidisciplinary approach that really makes this study a research project in the field of management science. The fields of literature that were studied (history, sociology, cultural studies) are uncommon to an MBA-student. But here lies the true strength of the multidisciplinary, managerial ap-proach: research is guided by the interests of the problem owner, and not limited to a spe-cific theory domain.

The literature study phase was split in two. First, chapter 4 takes a broad look at the Japa-nese society, focusing attention on the country’s history, politico-economic system and cul-ture. Chapter 5 looks more closely at relevant aspects of business life in Japan, in particular R&D, IT and project management. Chapter 6 wraps it all up with conclusions and recommendations.

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Figure 13: Research model: main research. study MP content

lit-erature

study MP related lit-erature (IDEF, XML)

participate in MP hold interviews

draw IDEF0 model curr. sys. dev. meth.

collect feedback on IDEF0 models

shortlist of problems

Japan assess Japanese

background the West conclusions / sug-gestions final report assess usefulness West. project mgt.

Question 1

Chapter 3 Question 2

Chapter 4 Question 3

Chapter 5 Question 4

Chapter 6

historical

deepen insight / as-sess Japaneseness politico-economical cultural R&D IT project management project management

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3 Problem description

Before digging into the subject of Japan, this chapter starts with a detailed analysis of the Millennium Project problem situation. As was explained in paragraph 2.4, a better under-standing of the problem was obtained through participation in the project, interviews with project members, and desk research of articles published by Naka’s research group, as well as literature on topics related to the Millennium Project (e.g. “data modeling” and “PET cycling”). A salient feature of the problem situation is that the problems are strongly re-lated to each other. It was particularly difficult to unravel the tangle. Nevertheless, an at-tempt has been made to disaggregate the problems into three sub-problems. The para-graphs in this chapter have been classified accordingly: paragraph 3.1 deals with the prob-lem of the goal being unclear, paragraph 3.2 goes into the lack of a clear workflow and fi-nally the elusiveness of the project organization is analyzed in paragraph 3.3. Each of these paragraphs will highlight a few problems that lie at the cause of the Millennium Project’s elusiveness. In this way, this chapter will result in a shortlist of problems, that will serve as a starting point for further analysis in the next chapters.

3.1 Unclear

goal

“Defining the goal is part of the goal of the Millennium Project,” said one of the TITech professors involved. He thus pointed out the essence of the problem: the project members have no clear, shared specification of the Technological Information Infrastructure they set out to develop. Instead, Prof. Naka hopes that through cooperation in the project, partici-pants will grow towards a common understanding of what this chemical highway should look like. But in practice, managing a research project without a clear, concrete objective is a rude awakening. The efforts of individual members are linked together only by a vision – and a rather unspecific vision at that. Staff gave unclear and contradictory accounts of practical activities intended to coordinate their efforts. They were – without exception – de-lighted to elaborate on their own research field, but found it difficult to relate their work to that of others. Some explicitly expressed their interest in the outcomes of this project man-agement study, which they expected to be helpful in identifying their position in the big picture.

In this paragraph, three main explanations for the Millennium Project’s lack of a clear ob-jective will be given. Section 3.1.1 explains that the project’s stakeholders provide little guidance, section 3.1.2 adds that Prof. Naka has a double agenda for the Millennium Pro-ject and section 3.1.3 argues that the proPro-ject’s official “goal” is in fact not much more than an abstract vision. In short, this paragraph concludes that official Millennium Project documents serve a purpose in obtaining funding for research, but they are less useful in or-chestrating actual scientific efforts. The project’s targets are too broad and too ambitious.

3.1.1 No guidance from the stakeholders

Even in IT projects where a specific customer provides specifications in advance, ambiguity concerning the desired functionality is a major cause of failure. Customers often have no clear idea of what they want. Moreover, they tend to add to their wishes as the system de-velops.28_{This partly explains why IT projects often exceed their budgets in terms of time} and money.29_{It goes without saying that developing a useful IT system within a reasonable} budget becomes even more difficult if the customer provides no specifications at all – as is the case with the Millennium Project.

Defying Japan

Defying Japan

An analysis of the Millennium Project research program

conducted at Tokyo Institute of Technology

Keywords:

● PET-bottle recycling

● Japanese society

● Project management

● Research & Development

● Information Technology

Management summary

Acknowledgements: ありがとう!

Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Professor Naka’s research group at Tokyo Institute of

Technology

1.2 The chemical industry in Japan

1.3 The Millennium Project initiated by JCII

1.4 The PET-bottle recycling case

1.5 The Millennium Project’s aspirations

1.6 The Millennium Project organization

1.7 Problem

indication

METI

2 Research design

2.1 Two-step

approach

2.2 Preliminary research

2.3 Preliminary report

2.4 Main research

Question 1

Chapter 3

Question 2

Chapter 4

Question 3

Chapter 5

Question 4

Chapter 6

3 Problem description

3.1 Unclear

goal