At an experimental sorting centre in Koshigaya, outside Tokyo, employees of Japan Post have been taking tips from Toyota. The civil servants handling Koshi-gaya's mail have learnt how to break tasks into manageable chunks, track their pace by the quarter-hour and rearrange sorting trays more efficiently. These are essential steps for an organisation that is due to face privatisation and competition in a couple of years. But sorting mail is only part of Japan Post's business and, oddly, not its most important one. For the company is also the world's biggest financial institution, the primary savings bank and provider of insurance to millions of Japanese.
展开▼
