Japanese

"The Factor Behind the Accident"

The large-scale fatal derailment accident, which occurred on April 25 near a railway crossing between Tsukaguchi and Amagasaki Stations along West Japan Railway Co's Fukuchiyama Line, had developed into catastrophe and resulted in killing 107 and injuring 460 out of 580 passengers. The cause of the accident is estimated that 23-year-old train operator, who was only 11 months on the job, proceeded into the curve when he was traveling over the speed limit in order to make up for the time loss he made when he overrun the platform at the last station before the accident site.

However, the undue psychological pressure by the punitive employee-retraining program for the train operator who is not able to keep the schedule, and the overloaded timetable to win the competition against other railway companies are supposed to have influenced on the accident as well. As you can see at Japan Airline's repeated troubles cases, the quality of the workers of the worksite, which Japan has been proud of, seems to have been marked by serious fraying around the edges. The high quality of the industrial products and efficient production process of Japanese industry has been created by the continuous daily effort of all workers of the worksite, which is represented by the famous catch phrase "KAIZEN". As it was created by their own effort, they are thoroughly familiar with all aspect of the production process and therefore they can take pride in their business. That will motivate them to raise their own technology and capability, thus the height of the quality of a product has been maintained as a result. In order to make KAIZEN continue, the human resource development is indispensable.
Toyota and Canon, the representing manufacture of Japan, have focused on human resource development from a long-term perspective with both workers and employers in an integrated manner. But if you give an eye to JR West, as they attached too much importance on the efficiency and profits, they seems to have imposed excessive demand beyond capability on employees without giving necessary personnel training.

In contrast to Japan, U.S. Company is trying to cover human error by the system. So as to minimize human errors, they are trying to eliminate judgment of human being on the basis that human commit mistakes. I think there is also some truth in their perspective. However, even in this sense, it was proved that JR west did not take indispensable measures as they neglected installation of Automatic Train Stop System (ATS).

2005/06/03