5 ms·

Japanese companies have been great at other things like manufacturing and decent at stuff like software. What gives when it comes to nuclear plant operation?

by api 4y ago

pigsty 4y ago
There’s been lots of fraud revealed lately. Japan has been simply covering it up very well. Just a few examples that I recall this past year or two include faking emissions tests for vehicles, faking steel quality tests, faking GDP by counting construction costs up to four times, and faking about 99% of clams from Kumamoto and local fishermen were apparently aware of this for decades. All of these issues went on for several years. Corruption at all levels has been revealed lately, and when you stack this up, all these things passed of as “good enough. Nobody will know” can end up in total disasters when quality matters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-revoke-hinos-engine-certification-over-false-emissions-data-2022-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-revoke-hino... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905.amp https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14769587 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14769587 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14502921 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14502921 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14538401 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14538401
duxup 4y ago
Is it a Japan thing or more a human / "industry culture" thing where you had bad apples operating and that became the SoP?
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  I think it is different in different countries. I think the US has a much tougher attitude about health and safety than most places. Maybe we pay a cost for that, but it is for real. I spent a year living in Europe and was surprised at how much worse nutrition labels were in Europe at the time. In Dresden, Germany they still had cigarette vending machines all over town and frequently had a candy vending machine mounted next to the cigarette machines to get the little ones started. The US has been reluctant to license MOX fabrication plants in the US because of the fear of the the danger of plutonium dust poses to workers. France has been confident that it has it under control. It is a subject that people have talked about for a long time without a lot of data, but a relatively recent study shows the dangers are real https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28520643/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28520643/ even if they aren't catastrophic like they were at the vermiculite mine in Libby, MT.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > the US has a much tougher attitude about health and safety than most places. Attitude? Maybe. In reality? Often not. No idea why you think nutrition labels are worse and how they factor in "health and safety" when corn syrup is everywhere in the food in the States and 42% of population is obese. On the other end of the spectrum you have underinvestment in critical infrastructure. For example, dams: https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-an-era-of-extreme-weather-concerns-grow-over-dam-safety https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-an-era-of-extreme-weather-... There are very few (developed) countries which are as lax about health and safety as the US.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    I feel like you associate concern with safety to making people aware or restrictions. In other words if a country has a higher drinking age, better education, and more labels then that country cares more about safety. I think that the actions of the population are a better example. Maybe you mean is "the US government is more concerned about safety " but that could be because the population doesn't care. To be fair, Germany has a higher rate of people who smoke (around 23% vs 12%)
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > In Dresden, Germany they still had cigarette vending machines all over town We have those in the US, too. Granted, they're usually confined to bars, but there's no shortage of bars in the average American town.
  - BrandoElFollito 4y ago
    > I spent a year living in Europe and was surprised at how much worse nutrition labels were in Europe at the time. When was that? There is compulsory information about ingredients (sorted by percentage, so you readily see when "sugar" is on the very top), France has "nutriscore" which is a A-E scale of nutritional value. There are strict rules on naming (for instance "100% juice" means that the jucie directly comes from pressed fruit (concentrates are forbidden) and that nothing else can be added).
PaulHoule 4y ago
You would think that the quality movement ideas that have made Japanese cars so good would apply to safety but the UAW will point out that a US car factory is a much safer workplace than a Japanese car factory. Some of that is the UAW being a strong union that looks out for its members, some of it is the adversarial legal culture in the US. Japanese workers, for instance, like to make changes to their workstations to improve their performance (for instance, complete the job more quickly.) In a normal workplace that's a great idea, but when you are working with solutions of fissionable elements there are many details you need to control to prevent a criticality accident, and they evaded those controls.
- eternityforest 4y ago
  For all the talk about Europe and Asia being ahead of us, I think we have the about correct amount of adversarial legal culture, maybe only slightly too much, and everyone else doesn't have enough. I hear people saying the hot coffee lawsuit should have been thrown out , and to me that's just crazy that anyone would want to allow safety standards to go on ignored to that level. Outside of safety related stuff our laws are a bit messed up, but I do appreciate the fact that we make an effort to keep people safe.
  - nerdawson 4y ago
    > I hear people saying the hot coffee lawsuit should have been thrown out , and to me that's just crazy that anyone would want to allow safety standards to go on ignored to that level. I think it's a matter of taking personal responsibility rather than finding someone to blame when you make a mistake.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      I personally don't think it's reasonable to assume that something intended for human consumption would be served hot enough to fuse one's labia to one's thigh if spilled on one's lap. In light of that, "personal responsibility" doesn't seem to be very applicable in that particular case.
rurounijones 4y ago
TEPCO has an atrocious safety culture. the operators of the Onagawa plant (closer to the epicenter) had a very safety-first culture and it showed.
kaba0 4y ago
I am absolutely out of my depth here, but isn’t Japan very “agist” (not sure of the correct word)? Just basing it on a previous HN thread about Japanese website design, a commenter mentioned software company higher managers, who can’t use a computer and the like. Some tendency of placing elderly people in important roles simply based on respect and not knowledge sounds like a plausible explanation, especially when one, high-enough people can wreak absolute havoc in a very top-down control flow. But I’m talking out of my ass here, don’t take anything seriously.

Japanese companies have been great at other things like manufacturing and decent at stuff like software. What gives when it comes to nuclear plant operation?

by api 4y ago

Japanese companies have been great at other things like manufacturing and decent at stuff like software. What gives when it comes to nuclear plant operation?

pigsty 4y ago

There’s been lots of fraud revealed lately. Japan has been simply covering it up very well. Just a few examples that I recall this past year or two include faking emissions tests for vehicles, faking steel quality tests, faking GDP by counting construction costs up to four times, and faking about 99% of clams from Kumamoto and local fishermen were apparently aware of this for decades. All of these issues went on for several years. Corruption at all levels has been revealed lately, and when you stack this up, all these things passed of as “good enough. Nobody will know” can end up in total disasters when quality matters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-revoke-hinos-engine-certification-over-false-emissions-data-2022-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-revoke-hino... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905.amp https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14769587 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14769587 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14502921 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14502921 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14538401 https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14538401

duxup 4y ago

Is it a Japan thing or more a human / "industry culture" thing where you had bad apples operating and that became the SoP?

PaulHoule 4y ago
I think it is different in different countries. I think the US has a much tougher attitude about health and safety than most places. Maybe we pay a cost for that, but it is for real. I spent a year living in Europe and was surprised at how much worse nutrition labels were in Europe at the time. In Dresden, Germany they still had cigarette vending machines all over town and frequently had a candy vending machine mounted next to the cigarette machines to get the little ones started. The US has been reluctant to license MOX fabrication plants in the US because of the fear of the the danger of plutonium dust poses to workers. France has been confident that it has it under control. It is a subject that people have talked about for a long time without a lot of data, but a relatively recent study shows the dangers are real https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28520643/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28520643/ even if they aren't catastrophic like they were at the vermiculite mine in Libby, MT.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > the US has a much tougher attitude about health and safety than most places. Attitude? Maybe. In reality? Often not. No idea why you think nutrition labels are worse and how they factor in "health and safety" when corn syrup is everywhere in the food in the States and 42% of population is obese. On the other end of the spectrum you have underinvestment in critical infrastructure. For example, dams: https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-an-era-of-extreme-weather-concerns-grow-over-dam-safety https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-an-era-of-extreme-weather-... There are very few (developed) countries which are as lax about health and safety as the US.
- themitigating 4y ago
  I feel like you associate concern with safety to making people aware or restrictions. In other words if a country has a higher drinking age, better education, and more labels then that country cares more about safety. I think that the actions of the population are a better example. Maybe you mean is "the US government is more concerned about safety " but that could be because the population doesn't care. To be fair, Germany has a higher rate of people who smoke (around 23% vs 12%)
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > In Dresden, Germany they still had cigarette vending machines all over town We have those in the US, too. Granted, they're usually confined to bars, but there's no shortage of bars in the average American town.
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  > I spent a year living in Europe and was surprised at how much worse nutrition labels were in Europe at the time. When was that? There is compulsory information about ingredients (sorted by percentage, so you readily see when "sugar" is on the very top), France has "nutriscore" which is a A-E scale of nutritional value. There are strict rules on naming (for instance "100% juice" means that the jucie directly comes from pressed fruit (concentrates are forbidden) and that nothing else can be added).

PaulHoule 4y ago

You would think that the quality movement ideas that have made Japanese cars so good would apply to safety but the UAW will point out that a US car factory is a much safer workplace than a Japanese car factory. Some of that is the UAW being a strong union that looks out for its members, some of it is the adversarial legal culture in the US. Japanese workers, for instance, like to make changes to their workstations to improve their performance (for instance, complete the job more quickly.) In a normal workplace that's a great idea, but when you are working with solutions of fissionable elements there are many details you need to control to prevent a criticality accident, and they evaded those controls.

eternityforest 4y ago
For all the talk about Europe and Asia being ahead of us, I think we have the about correct amount of adversarial legal culture, maybe only slightly too much, and everyone else doesn't have enough. I hear people saying the hot coffee lawsuit should have been thrown out , and to me that's just crazy that anyone would want to allow safety standards to go on ignored to that level. Outside of safety related stuff our laws are a bit messed up, but I do appreciate the fact that we make an effort to keep people safe.
- nerdawson 4y ago
  > I hear people saying the hot coffee lawsuit should have been thrown out , and to me that's just crazy that anyone would want to allow safety standards to go on ignored to that level. I think it's a matter of taking personal responsibility rather than finding someone to blame when you make a mistake.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    I personally don't think it's reasonable to assume that something intended for human consumption would be served hot enough to fuse one's labia to one's thigh if spilled on one's lap. In light of that, "personal responsibility" doesn't seem to be very applicable in that particular case.

rurounijones 4y ago

TEPCO has an atrocious safety culture. the operators of the Onagawa plant (closer to the epicenter) had a very safety-first culture and it showed.

kaba0 4y ago

I am absolutely out of my depth here, but isn’t Japan very “agist” (not sure of the correct word)? Just basing it on a previous HN thread about Japanese website design, a commenter mentioned software company higher managers, who can’t use a computer and the like. Some tendency of placing elderly people in important roles simply based on respect and not knowledge sounds like a plausible explanation, especially when one, high-enough people can wreak absolute havoc in a very top-down control flow. But I’m talking out of my ass here, don’t take anything seriously.