Interesting International experience today.......

[sixdogs]

This is very interesting. I have a JD 790 (Yanmar) and would not mind owning a branded Yanmar. They seem to make a great product and do seem to be in it for the long haul.

 

[Baby Grand]

That is impressive attention from a company today.

I don't own any Yanmar engines, but I'm not surprised to hear this story told. A buddy is restoring an old top-of-it's-class sailboat - he figures that given even the slightest whiff of decent maintenance, the original Yanmar diesel that's in it will probably outlive his grandkids. You don't continue to build products like that today by accident.

One characteristic of Japanese companies that still seems true today is that even their executives seem to sweat the small details. I think it was Nissan (might have been Toyoda) - for one of their last vans, the chief engineer (or maybe VP?) volunteered to (and did) drive an early production mule coast-to-coast in the USA. Culturally, they still seem to value direct hands-on experience, regardless of their personal stature - smart, real smart - at least if your business is actually building things, as opposed to running financial scams.

The other neat thing about that story was that the Eng Executive made it explicitly clear that this was something that he wanted to do personally, and that he did not want it interpreted as something he expected his subordinates to do in the future. I think that part of the story is even cooler than the fact that he did what would be considered over here a pretty menial task, usually assigned to a junior engineer/team.

Smart companies push their product development people to get out in the field (pun intended) and really learn how their customers use/abuse/maintain (or not)/modify their equipment.

Rgds, D.

I couldn't agree more. It seems that our executive class lives and works in such isolation that actually taking off the suit and putting on the coveralls and doing something themselves, not delegating the task, would never occur to them. By the time they get any "field" information it has been so filtered and diluted to align with what they are being told by middle management that they really have no clue what's going on.

 

[3930dave]

I couldn't agree more. It seems that our executive class lives and works in such isolation that actually taking off the suit and putting on the coveralls and doing something themselves, not delegating the task, would never occur to them. By the time they get any "field" information it has been so filtered and diluted to align with what they are being told by middle management that they really have no clue what's going on.

Speed kills. In this context, speed of real data through a corporation is part of what you can use to kill the competetion. That is some of what the Japanese executive class is staying in touch with. How do you know what is real, if spend all your time isolated in a glass tower ?

That awareness and common sense used to exist here, not really (historical terms) that long ago. The book The HP Way gives you good insight into why that garage start-up grew into what it did. Even after HP grew significantly , everyone that worked there realized Bill or Dave could stop by your lab at anytime, and instantly ask really insightful and detailed core engineering questions about the product you were working on. In that evironment you not only better bring your A Game to the table, but you probably need to re-assess what you think your A Game is.

I've had the privilege of working in one organization where the execs were that dialled-in. The difference it makes in corporate and personal performance and job satisfaction is light-years apart.

Rgds, D.