Keywords
spatial and temporal changes of factories, degree of factory aggregation, contact process, just-in-time system
Start Date
1-7-2008 12:00 AM
Abstract
Factories or plants are built or dismantled for various complex reasons. Understanding the construction and dismantlement processes of factories is one of complicated economic problems. The present article has two purposes: one is to explore the spatial and temporal changes of factories at Hamamatsu city in Japan, and the other is to represent the spatial and temporal changes by a simple simulation model. The time dependence of factory number can be classified into two periods. Before the collapse of Japanese stock market (1990), the number of factories increases smoothly. On the contrary, after the collapse, it rapidly decreases. The spatial structures of factories are statistically analyzed by auto-correlation. It is found that the factories more or less form aggregated or crowded structures. When the industrialization is not yet fully developed, the aggregation is very strong. In contrast, just before the collapse (in “bubble period”), the factories nearly form a random distribution rather than aggregation. After the collapse, they form slightly aggregated pattern. Such a profile is similar to that of biological population dynamics. We illustrate that the construction and dismantlement processes of factories can be qualitatively explained by the contact process which is a simple ecological model. Moreover, we discuss the relation between the distribution of factories and the Just-in-Time system in Hamamatsu industry.
Simulation study on spatial and temporal changes of factories in an industry district
Factories or plants are built or dismantled for various complex reasons. Understanding the construction and dismantlement processes of factories is one of complicated economic problems. The present article has two purposes: one is to explore the spatial and temporal changes of factories at Hamamatsu city in Japan, and the other is to represent the spatial and temporal changes by a simple simulation model. The time dependence of factory number can be classified into two periods. Before the collapse of Japanese stock market (1990), the number of factories increases smoothly. On the contrary, after the collapse, it rapidly decreases. The spatial structures of factories are statistically analyzed by auto-correlation. It is found that the factories more or less form aggregated or crowded structures. When the industrialization is not yet fully developed, the aggregation is very strong. In contrast, just before the collapse (in “bubble period”), the factories nearly form a random distribution rather than aggregation. After the collapse, they form slightly aggregated pattern. Such a profile is similar to that of biological population dynamics. We illustrate that the construction and dismantlement processes of factories can be qualitatively explained by the contact process which is a simple ecological model. Moreover, we discuss the relation between the distribution of factories and the Just-in-Time system in Hamamatsu industry.
