What the Heck Is Kotozukuri?

In my last post I talked about hitozukuri for human resources development, and in a much earlier post about monozukuri for making things. But, there is more: Kotozukuri stands for… a lot of different things, most often for the joy and passion to make products. It is not so well known, is often interpreted differently, and may be just a buzzword, but I would like to show you this anyway.

Introduction

As per my previous posts, monozukuri literally means making things. Initially used for craftsmanship, it is nowadays also used to give more weight and importance to industrial production. The other word, hitozukuri, is less common than monozukuri, and can be translated as human resources development, personnel training, or character building.

But there is more.

Linguistics of Kotozukuri

Kotozukuri (written as 事作り or 事づくり, and sometimes even as コトづくり) also has the same “zukuri” (作り or づくり) ending as monozukuri and hitozukuri. The “koto” part (事) stands for thing, matter, or state of affairs. It is much less commonly used than monozukuri or hitozukuri, and, quite frankly, I don’t really use that word much, and I don’t think it is used much in Japanese lean manufacturing either.

The Many Meanings of Kotozukuri

The meaning of kotozukuri is also much more vague, and different people define it quite differently. Often, kotozukuri is seen as the “passion and craftsmanship to make things.” If it is mentioned in lean, it is usually accompanied by the much more significant and much better known monozukuri and hitozukuri. This “love to create” is probably the most common way to interpret kotozukuri to bridge the gap between idea/design and the final successful execution in the market.

However, just to add to the confusion, since around 2012 Nissan has used kotozukuri for  “brand-storytelling” or content marketing, with the goal of entering into dialogue with the customer. This usage is quite different from other sources I have seen. However, this definition seems to be little used outside of Nissan, and I think it has not caught on in Japan.

And yet again, others see it as “value creation,” often from a market perspective. The idea is to shift from a manufacturer-centric focus to a market-centric focus, from building products to servicing your customers and providing good customer experience. And there may be even more definitions and different flavors that I am unaware of. Overall, to me it feels a bit too much like a buzzword, and I am not sure how helpful it is in everyday lean manufacturing.

More, More, Give Me More…

Let’s see, we had the important one monozukuri for making things, its smaller sidekick hitozukuri for making people, and here the little-known kotozukuri for making things happen (or telling brand stories, if you prefer the Nissan way). Surely that should be enough. No? All right. Well, there are many more words ending in “zukuri,” albeit they have little to no connection to lean manufacturing.

There is also bashozukuri (場所づくり or abbreviated 場づくり) for making a place (basho 場所). This is often seen as creating the right environment or atmosphere, trying to set the scene for collaboration and learning. It is not really a lean vocabulary (and please don’t add it), and you can go down a rabbit hole on the differences between 場所づくり and its shorter version 場づくり, which mean pretty much the same thing unless they don’t.

Want more? Oh well…

There is machizukuri (街づくり or まちづくり), where”machi” (街) is the town, and the whole word stands for town planning, urban development, community development. Now we are definitely way off track from lean manufacturing. If you are thinking on a bigger scale, there is kunizukuri (国づくり), where “kuni” (国) is a country and you are doing nation building. On a smaller scale you have iezukuri (家づくり) where “ie” (家) is the house, and you are doing residential construction.

Karadazukuri (体作り) is bodybuilding, with karada (体) being the body. This has nothing to do with lean. In tezukuri (手作り), the word “te” stands for hand and together it simply means handmade. There are even more words like shinogi-zukuri (鎬造り), hira-zukuri (平造り), and moroha-zukuri (両刃造り) for details on how to make Japanese swords…

…but I think you get the message now: The ending “zukuri” simply means “to make,” and you can combine it with pretty much any word you like. It is just like the English word “…building”, like nation-building, relationship-building,  body-building, and many more. So, now that I have done my blog-post-zukuri, you can go out, beware of buzzwords while you do your lean-zukuri while also doing your product-zukuri, and organize-zukuri your industry! Wait…what?

Selected Sources

• Henrik Saabye, Daryl Powellc, and Peter Hines: The microfoundations of lean leadership: Monozukuri, Hitozukuri, Kotozukuri. Total Quality Management, Vol. 35, No. 9, 998–1014, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2024.2349806
• 寺澤 朝子: コトづくりとイノベーション. Transactions of the Academic Association for Organizational Science, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 35-40, 2014