The aims of this article are next two points. First of all, we clarify a structure of division of labor between trial production manufactures and their customers, and also a roll of trial production manufacturers in the phase of product development in Japanese machinery industry, particularly auto industry and electric one. Secondly, we classify the business models of trial production manufacturers.
Our analysis shows that almost all trial production manufacturers contribute some special functions, for instance, ultra quick delivery as well as small lot size production, difficult process and unstable orders that a previous study has already introduced. Moreover, some trial production manufacturers have raised their position as Tier 1 suppliers recently. And also, we present the two types of business models. There are the companies focused just on trial production and the ones work both trial production and small lot size mass-produced products. In our paper, we can conclude that the former companies are more competitive than latter ones.