Canon Korea made each copier cell run like a tiny company

Canon Korea's Ansan factory adopted cell production in 1999 and removed a 180-meter conveyor. The change lifted output, but it also exposed a second problem: production cells still waited on separate support departments for parts, inspection, inventory and shipping.

In 2002, the plant created its own Cell Company Organization, or gijongjang system. ETNews described it as gathering the people for one product model under a representative leader, then making that group responsible for everything from parts ordering and materials to technology, manufacturing, inspection and shipment.

The clever move was organizational, not mechanical. A later ETNews profile said the system cut blame-shifting between production and management departments, reduced inventory and defects, and raised productivity 23% beyond cell production alone.

Put the whole product flow under one owner

The bottleneck was at department boundaries, so the fix removed the boundary instead of speeding each department separately.

Model-level ownership made trade-offs visible to the same team that felt the consequences.

The system turned abstract accountability into daily authority over purchasing, staffing and shipment.

A flexible cell still stalls if supporting functions stay outside it; move the interfaces into the team that owns the result.

The Ansan plant kept building on the model with Meister certification for workers who could assemble and check a full model and MIDAS certification for people who could handle production management, materials, inspection and logistics. ETNews reported that the plant's output rose roughly 20-fold in the decade after adopting cell production.