[rrsteer]

In my opinion the root cause of string of failures and recent under performance at Japanese corporations is the cultural basis on which they are organized to perform.

Theirs is a homogeneous culture. The strength of their TQM-oriented companies, can only survive if it remains an insular society. This is a strength when you want mass obedience, even co-ordinated innovation (explaining Japan's leadership in artificial intelligence and robotics (not sw robotics), for example) but is a weakness when you are looking for individual innovation and diversity of thought. Today the companies that outperform are open organizations. Japan can never have an Apple or a Tesla for that matter. Japanese enterprises are rattled at the innovation pouring from China and US. Not a surprise for me that they are failing and looking at other means to survive. The rot is much deeper then being imagined even now.

[vinair]

To me this country is as weird as it can get! Even in my profession I interact with folks from this country and trust me, its just not a pleasant discussion every time. Vouch for it. What this country makes others believe and what it actually does seems very strange to me and there is something seriously wrong.

[WhiteFang]

I already have a fear for flying and it will not get any better after seeing Boeing and Airbus in that list.
Aviation and Marine are those sectors where we cannot have any margin for these kind of mistakes.

[AKTRACK]

"Everything happens to everyone if there is time enough" - I seriously believe this. There is a scandal running in every company, it is just a matter of time before it comes to light

[Technocrat]

This is scary but what I am wondering is the stuff they are not telling. So far from what I have read it talks only about they faked the reports to make thier products meet the specifications but to what degree the actual quality differed is not known.

Also what triggered this disclosure now if they already knew about it since last few months. I guess we will know more in the coming days.

[14000rpm]

This is what I got from FCA today.

Community:FCA Suppliers
Message priority:Urgent
Message:
Dear Supplier,
On behalf of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. and its subsidiaries (“FCA Group”), we are requesting certain information related to Kobe Steel Ltd (“Kobe”).
You may be aware of recent reports regarding data falsification of certain technical features of Kobe products and materials.
As a result of the recently published information on Kobe, we request that you inform FCA Group if the components your Company directly or indirectly is supplying (and has supplied) to any entity in the FCA Group embody products or materials directly or indirectly manufactured and/or sourced by Kobe. We ask that you provide such information as soon as possible to the email address listed below.
If the components do contain Kobe products or materials, we request your Company to (i) provide us with details about the specific components impacted including FCA part numbers, (ii) adopt all necessary measures in order to guarantee that the components supplied (and to be supplied) to FCA Group entities are free from defects, fit for their intended purpose, safe and reliable and (iii) keep FCA Group informed about such measures and their implementation.

As it goes, the automotive OEMs may/may not have used KOBE steel for BIW. if they have and their physical crash test of cars have passed, we should all be fairly relaxed.
however, it is the sub-system supplier who may have used KOBE steel is what should be of concern since OEM's check for the suppliers' products' functional aspect and pass it for manufacture with functional testing only. Deterioration of the chemical composition over time cannot be assessed at this time. This is where the problem lies.

Let me explain with the Takata case :
Their usage of Ammonia Nitrate as the chemical worked ok in all many geographies. However, in Humid places, moisture seepage into the chemical create the explosion far higher than intended. OEM's approved Takata's product since it passed the functional test.

It's a whole another thing with regards to other usages. Europe has just notified all Plane manufacturers to stop using Kobe Steel immediately. God Forbid there are some nuclear powerplants out there using their steel.

It is now a question of 'what lies beneath'.

[behaln]

Really don't understand. What has happened to the world. Japanese were supposed to be the most honest people in the world. All these scandals in the land of rising sun is not good for their credibility.
These powerful business houses do these scams and effect is felt by the end user customers.

[Pontiac]

Originally Posted by GTO

Once upon a time, Japan was the king of cars & electronics. Not anymore in either category.

Cannot generalize electronics I guess since cameras falls in that category nowadays. There is nothing that beats Japanese in cameras. Manufacturing has become so expensive in Japan and this can be seen in a normal electronics shop where they are forced to sell exact same products side by side one made in Japan and one made elsewhere and a huge price difference between the two.

There is still a niche feeling on the “Made in Japan” products in many categories. The question is how many are willing to pay more for that feeling and quality.

The quality of the cars “Made for Japan” still is far superior compared to the plastic FWD junk they sell in North America.

[sgmuser]

Originally Posted by Pontiac

Cannot generalize electronics I guess since cameras falls in that category nowadays. There is nothing that beats Japanese in cameras. Manufacturing has become so expensive in Japan and this can be seen in a normal electronics shop where they are forced to sell exact same products side by side one made in Japan and one made elsewhere and a huge price difference between the two.

There is still a niche feeling on the “Made in Japan” products in many categories. The question is how many are willing to pay more for that feeling and quality.

The quality of the cars “Made for Japan” still is far superior compared to the plastic FWD junk they sell in North America.

Slight OT: I used to think Japanese are the epitome for reliability. I prefer to get Made in Japan if possible when I do shop electronic stuff. But, I learnt that Japan is not the epitome of Reliability. They used to be but they lost it long back due to the competition from Korea, Malaysia lately China. For example, take Sony. I have seen many Sony picture tube TVs working for decades. TV/,movie edit studios used to use Sony as monitors. But, now, they are one of worst in terms reliability in consumer (from approximately 2000-ish on wards). If you check US consumer complaints website, there are hundreds and hundreds of complaints with LCD/LED TVs, cameras and what not. I personally had issues in at least 3 products (Home Theater, Digital Video Camera and a 2 lakhs worth of LCD TV) all made in Japan. When I started to do some research then I found these are all manufacturing issues and lots of litigation going on in US on all these products. I got a refund for Digital Camera repair charges but for others nothing! Same happened to cars as well. Toyotas, Hondas running million KMs until recently. But now? Then their integrity issues in starting from Mitsubishi, Takata etc. Japanese always try to hide things, which causes lots of problem. May be it is a Asian cultural issue. Samsung also facing ethics/integrity issues. But now, this is the height of all the scams! It is very difficult to trace who are all affected. May be we have to just live with it. Very sad.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Does anybody know what kind of tests were falsified, and what properties of the metal are not up standard? Can it be explained in layman terms?

[Ace F355]

Wow! I am left dumbfounded and speechless the more I read about such scams.

This one will also have deep impact, since the industry usage of steel are far greater. Also, I am not able to understand the late unearthing of such scams in today's age, wouldn't the manufacturers be testing the steel products at their end too, rather than just believing on the spec sheet that just arrived from the supplier! I truly believe this is just a part of the story and the worst is yet to come!

A sad situation for Japanese automotive industry really.

[anshumandun]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Does anybody know what kind of tests were falsified, and what properties of the metal are not up standard? Can it be explained in layman terms?

I don't know what tests were falsified. But I know what tests can be falsified with steel. I work in manufacturing and we use steel as raw material for our products. Every time we get steel from our vendor, it is accompanied by a test certificate which has information about the chemical composition of the steel (percentage of alloying elements and impurities like carbon, aluminium, nitrogen, manganese etc). The test certificate also mentions the physical properties of the steel i.e. yield strength, tensile strength, hardness etc.

The chemical composition is to ensure that we are able to process the steel without any issues. For example, we will get a good weld joint if the carbon content is within our specified limits.

The physical properties are to ensure that the final product will be able to meet the stress and force requirements that it will see in normal working conditions and the product will survive for the full warranty period without any kinds of failure. We also put a safety factor into this so our specification always demands for higher values of steel strength than what is actually required.

If the vendor gives us falsified data, we will catch that as we do have a process of periodically sending the steel sample to a third party for testing and making sure that it matches the values on the test certificate given by the vendor. If the values do not match, we have the option to reject the steel and ask for new batch that meets our specification.

I am sure that most companies will have this stringent process of testing the steel themselves and ensuring that the test certificate data is not falsified. Then how come no one ever caught Kobe putting out this falsified data? This is beyond my understanding!

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by anshumandun

I am sure that most companies will have this stringent process of testing the steel themselves and ensuring that the test certificate data is not falsified. Then how come no one ever caught Kobe putting out this falsified data? This is beyond my understanding!

It is truly baffling how this could have taken place. Still, I do wonder how much testing is done the way you describe.

Japan has been one of the big promotor of total integrated Quality Assurance and Quality Control. In that system as a customer of Kobe you would check their QA/QC system (of course they will be certified to all sorts of standards), but many customers might be doing very little actual testing themselves. They would rely on the QC of Kobe and might do inspection there, but not necessarily invest in actual testing themselves.

Many years ago, I worked as a (P&I) contractor to Shell working on oil and gas production sites. We always spend a lot of time on material specification on pipes, valves and such. And we audited the manufacturer QA/QC process, we did a lot of paper and certificate checking, but never did we do any actual material tests as such. Maybe that was because we were dealing with the end product so to speak.

I seem to recall that for instance valve manufacturers and for instance flow meter manufacturers relied on the specifications and certification sheets they received from their steel supplier. Shell would be very picky and specific about what steel, manufactured by certain plants etc.

But somewhere in the process from “raw” steel to some end product the number of actual tests carried out diminishes quickly I would think.

As a matter of interest, in your manufacturing process are you able to keep some sort of traceability in place. E.g. Can you track and trace a certain batch of ‘raw’ steel into your end product?

Thanks
Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

This is from my small experience of Japanese culture. Maybe, in business terms not so small, as I worked for a Japanese company in London for more than a decade.

Some of the old-school head-office ex-pat guys had a very blatant attitude that what they did was perfect, whereas what local staff did was highly likely to be very imperfect. The head-office guy I worked with once told me, "That is all a nonsense. The reason that Japanese work is going to right is that we employ so many people: it will have been checked multiple times."

So what changed... the boom time, in which the costs of over-employment meant little, came to an end.

[anshumandun]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

As a matter of interest, in your manufacturing process are you able to keep some sort of traceability in place. E.g. Can you track and trace a certain batch of ‘raw’ steel into your end product?

Yes, we can do that. There is a sticker on the steel component inside the final end product which can trace back to the steel coil number that was used to manufacture that part. With the coil number, we'll know all the properties of that particular batch of steel by looking at its test certificate BUT there is no way to test that steel again.