Between 8 April and 23 April of this year, Phil Newell and Ian Radley of ICL's manufacturing business unit toured South Korea and Japan — the purpose of their visit was to study manufacturing planning and control techniques in high variety, small batch environments, the study of manufacturing methods and technologies as applied in South Korea and Japan, to investigate the methods used to tackle problems encountered during the design to manufacturing cycle and, ultimately, to enhance their own and ICL's knowledge and credibility in the marketplace. What follows is their report — a fascinating glimpse behind the bamboo curtain. More detailed case studies of the companies they visited will appear next month in Production Engineer.