Associate Professor of Sociology Thomas Janoski recently received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for his project “Lean Production in Japanese Transplants and American Auto Plants Processes of Management Control and Worker Identity in Causing Stress.”  He will be working with former student and professor at Kennesaw State University, Darina Lepadatu, and Research Assistant Cynthia Zhang. They will study how auto workers will handle the stresses of Total Quality Management (TQM), and Just-in-Time Inventory (JIT) systems. Current knowledge of workers in lean production is limited to start-up studies before 1990.

This project uses flexible open-ended interviews to explore the identities of workers in a deep way to understand how they view and adjust to TQM and JIT. The investigators will interview 150 current and former workers – 20 production workers in auto assembly plants and five workers in supplier plants in three Japanese auto transplants and three American auto plants. 

The project uses three theories about how workers themselves view work and stress. First, Lean Stress Theory indicates that JIT and TQM often add to stress and lead to three outcomes: (a) lower stress with high team unity and without management pressure; (b) higher stress and resistance with management pressure; and (c) high stress but no resistance with team unity and moderate management pressure. The first and third paths are hypothesized to accept lean direction with moderate or high stress. Second, Team Intensification Theory is modeled on lean production naturally creating team unity out of diversity based on the revised contact hypothesis. Successful lean teams have (a) contact between people of equal status (b) working on interlinked tasks in a small group (c) that is legitimated by leaders, and (d) resulting in successful outcomes. Lean production is the perfect setting for this theory. However, team intensification does not stop with work tasks and it can also lead to affairs and divorce with their own stresses and strains. Third, in Social Support Theory, stress comes from the lack of support from family, friends and community. Low family and community support can cause isolation that can be measured by the size and quality of interaction in social networks outside of work.

The importance of this research goes beyond manufacturing. JIT and TQM have now penetrated the insurance, medical, and other service industries, and lean production may soon become the dominant system of production in the globalized economy. Learning how workers function in lean production teams while simultaneously handling the stresses of TQM and JIT will be critical for designing more effective training and education systems for the future workforce. Since the US is not going to compete with foreign labor on the basis of low wages, it will have to continuously move upstream with skilled workers making high value-added products. This study will inform and benefit that process, and also point to what protections line employees may need from this form of intense work.