Design-Based Comparative Advantage: An Explanatory Analysis

         
Author Name FUJIMOTO Takahiro  (Faculty Fellow, RIETI) /OKUMA Shingo  (Manufacturing Management Research Center, Graduate School of Economics, the University of Tokyo / Fujitsu Research Institute)
Creation Date/NO. June 2007 07-J-025
Download / Links

Abstract

In this paper we attempt to integrate the open view of manufacturing on the basis of design into the theory of comparative advantage, one of the bases of the theory of industrial competitiveness. That is to say, we propose a "theory of design-based comparative advantage" from the standpoint that design location precedes production location: a view that arises from hands-on experience at plants or design facilities. We also seek out the mechanism that creates comparative advantage in design in the context of the design process at the shop floor at which a company is engaged in development, and through a simple simulation model we attempt to recreate the process through which comparative advantage in design manifests itself.