5 ms·

> Just people producing value You aren't very familiar with Japanese corporate culture.

masklinn 3y ago
This seems like a middle-size manufacturing company, not office jobs where the issue you’re referring to is most salient.
bmitc 3y ago
Their comment is reflecting upon the posted video and nothing else. Yes, Japan seems to have a rather vapid corporate culture in some areas (so do most countries), but Japan is also famous for manufacturing very high-quality goods using old and repurposed machines and passed down techniques, as seen in this video.
- rob74 3y ago
  You'd be surprised to see how much old industrial machinery is still being used around the world, even in other developed countries. Machines like these are a huge investment, so as long as they are still working flawlessly (and I imagine that the Japanese take maintenance seriously, so the machines will be working flawlessly), it's hard to justify replacing them. So they use punch cards for the patterns, what's the problem? And I imagine the computer system is only needed when new punch cards have to be produced, which won't happen that often - for existing patterns, they can use the existing punch cards.
  - hanniabu 3y ago
    > Machines like these are a huge investment, so as long as they are still working flawlessly I worked at a Colgate manufacturing facility. They had an NJ plant that had mechanical production lines. They've been running for 40 years so by the time i was there they were running flawlessly day in and day out and no matter what went wrong the maintenance crew knew how to fix it right away. To save costs they shut down that plant and opened up a new one in SC with fancy brand new electronic machines that were supposed to have much better throughput. It took them years to get all the machines working and even still the old machines produced more in 8 hours than the new ones made in 12 hours. And whenever the was a problem with the machine it was always some wonky issue with the relays, sensors, and timing and we'd have sometimes days of downtime and would need OEMs to come in and fix it. They wasted millions on that move which was supposed to save money and be more efficient. Many were fired/demoted from that.
    - stevezsa8 3y ago
      It's shocking reading stuff like this.
      - gottorf 3y ago
        I know you probably meant that in jest, but it makes sense as we have a sea change between the pre-digital and post-digital generations. And this isn't just a "back in my day, we knew when to get off the lawn"-type of observation; the post-digital cohort is used to copying and pasting bits where the new instance is a perfect reproduction of the old. Naturally, they think that you can copy a NJ factory and paste it in SC, sprinkle in some enhancements, and voila! You get a better version. But the world of atoms is much messier than the world of bits, and in the former even something like getting the floor of the factory to be level is a nontrivial task.
        stevezsa8 3y ago
        Maybe this just shows that I have some experience under my belt... but I understand that most things take longer and cost more than planned. So the thought of scrapping a working factory with decades of fine-tuning already done... pains me. I worked with one project manager who was straight out of school. I couldn't believe that the direction and management of multiple teams of engineers was coming from someone who was going to make all their rookie mistakes on our project... and all the people who hired him already left for new jobs, so no consequences for them.
    - wpietri 3y ago
      > Many were fired/demoted from that. Did they fire/demote the brain geniuses who kicked this off? Because the corporate stories I know like this generally involve the responsible parties getting promotions for their bravery and forward thinking, while the pain falls on the people they forced to work on it and who unaccountably failed to implement their perfect visions.
  - lost_tourist 3y ago
    doesn't surprise me when it costs millions to replace/redesign :)
  - rewmie 3y ago
    > You'd be surprised to see how much old industrial machinery is still being used around the world, even in other developed countries. Machines like these are a huge investment, so as long as they are still working flawlessly (and I imagine that the Japanese take maintenance seriously, so the machines will be working flawlessly), it's hard to justify replacing them. Case in point: when Russia started it's invasion of Ukraine, one of the first things they did was to pillage the industrial areas of the regions they controlled to take away industrial equipment, including farm vehicles.
    - hkpack 3y ago
      Although contrary to the popular believe, a lot of equipment in Ukraine is of the latest generation. For example, a lot of farmers use the latest John Deere tractors. The same is for metallurgy - it was consistently upgraded through the years and not outdated in any way.
    - elzbardico 3y ago
      Ukraine is piss poor compared to Russia. For years Russia provided Ukraine with underpriced gas while Ukraine’s export prices increased rapidly, but due to the dysfunctional governments they had, they never were able to take advantage of that. Ukraine historically was an agrarian economy that was industrialized with the usual Soviet brutality, accompanied by agriculture collectivization and the usual mass repression. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it inherited a relatively good infrastructure and capital stocks, especially in energy, but it mostly failed to maintain that. Add to that the fact that since 1992, there was only one year when Ukraine had a balanced budget. There was a lot of growth in the aughts due to the high price of metallurgical during this decade, but Ukraine was mostly taking advantage of their existing industrial infrastructure inherited from the Soviets and failed to diversify and sophisticate their economy. Besides, if the idea is to invade the country to incorporate some separatist regions, it doesn't make sense to destroy its economic basis and end up with a huge refugee problem and a completely deserted land you just conquered. This is basically propaganda for gullible Americans that never traveled to Eastern Europe.
      - rewmie 3y ago
bugglebeetle 3y ago
[flagged]
- bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
  What you described could be summarized as ”useless”.
- justrealist 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - yard2010 3y ago
    You don't have to be snarky it is what it is
- yard2010 3y ago
  Forget about humanity, there are like 100-200 more people that can buy a small country that have to have more money there
- kalleboo 3y ago
  To be fair, aside from the arms dealing (which I'm probably just unaware of), Japanese corporate culture has done all of those things as well
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  You forgot 'cultural hegemony'.

This seems like a middle-size manufacturing company, not office jobs where the issue you’re referring to is most salient.

bmitc 3y ago

Their comment is reflecting upon the posted video and nothing else. Yes, Japan seems to have a rather vapid corporate culture in some areas (so do most countries), but Japan is also famous for manufacturing very high-quality goods using old and repurposed machines and passed down techniques, as seen in this video.

rob74 3y ago
You'd be surprised to see how much old industrial machinery is still being used around the world, even in other developed countries. Machines like these are a huge investment, so as long as they are still working flawlessly (and I imagine that the Japanese take maintenance seriously, so the machines will be working flawlessly), it's hard to justify replacing them. So they use punch cards for the patterns, what's the problem? And I imagine the computer system is only needed when new punch cards have to be produced, which won't happen that often - for existing patterns, they can use the existing punch cards.
- hanniabu 3y ago
  > Machines like these are a huge investment, so as long as they are still working flawlessly I worked at a Colgate manufacturing facility. They had an NJ plant that had mechanical production lines. They've been running for 40 years so by the time i was there they were running flawlessly day in and day out and no matter what went wrong the maintenance crew knew how to fix it right away. To save costs they shut down that plant and opened up a new one in SC with fancy brand new electronic machines that were supposed to have much better throughput. It took them years to get all the machines working and even still the old machines produced more in 8 hours than the new ones made in 12 hours. And whenever the was a problem with the machine it was always some wonky issue with the relays, sensors, and timing and we'd have sometimes days of downtime and would need OEMs to come in and fix it. They wasted millions on that move which was supposed to save money and be more efficient. Many were fired/demoted from that.
  - stevezsa8 3y ago
    It's shocking reading stuff like this.
    - gottorf 3y ago
      I know you probably meant that in jest, but it makes sense as we have a sea change between the pre-digital and post-digital generations. And this isn't just a "back in my day, we knew when to get off the lawn"-type of observation; the post-digital cohort is used to copying and pasting bits where the new instance is a perfect reproduction of the old. Naturally, they think that you can copy a NJ factory and paste it in SC, sprinkle in some enhancements, and voila! You get a better version. But the world of atoms is much messier than the world of bits, and in the former even something like getting the floor of the factory to be level is a nontrivial task.
      - stevezsa8 3y ago
        Maybe this just shows that I have some experience under my belt... but I understand that most things take longer and cost more than planned. So the thought of scrapping a working factory with decades of fine-tuning already done... pains me. I worked with one project manager who was straight out of school. I couldn't believe that the direction and management of multiple teams of engineers was coming from someone who was going to make all their rookie mistakes on our project... and all the people who hired him already left for new jobs, so no consequences for them.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    > Many were fired/demoted from that. Did they fire/demote the brain geniuses who kicked this off? Because the corporate stories I know like this generally involve the responsible parties getting promotions for their bravery and forward thinking, while the pain falls on the people they forced to work on it and who unaccountably failed to implement their perfect visions.
- lost_tourist 3y ago
  doesn't surprise me when it costs millions to replace/redesign :)
- rewmie 3y ago
  > You'd be surprised to see how much old industrial machinery is still being used around the world, even in other developed countries. Machines like these are a huge investment, so as long as they are still working flawlessly (and I imagine that the Japanese take maintenance seriously, so the machines will be working flawlessly), it's hard to justify replacing them. Case in point: when Russia started it's invasion of Ukraine, one of the first things they did was to pillage the industrial areas of the regions they controlled to take away industrial equipment, including farm vehicles.
  - hkpack 3y ago
    Although contrary to the popular believe, a lot of equipment in Ukraine is of the latest generation. For example, a lot of farmers use the latest John Deere tractors. The same is for metallurgy - it was consistently upgraded through the years and not outdated in any way.
  - elzbardico 3y ago
    Ukraine is piss poor compared to Russia. For years Russia provided Ukraine with underpriced gas while Ukraine’s export prices increased rapidly, but due to the dysfunctional governments they had, they never were able to take advantage of that. Ukraine historically was an agrarian economy that was industrialized with the usual Soviet brutality, accompanied by agriculture collectivization and the usual mass repression. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it inherited a relatively good infrastructure and capital stocks, especially in energy, but it mostly failed to maintain that. Add to that the fact that since 1992, there was only one year when Ukraine had a balanced budget. There was a lot of growth in the aughts due to the high price of metallurgical during this decade, but Ukraine was mostly taking advantage of their existing industrial infrastructure inherited from the Soviets and failed to diversify and sophisticate their economy. Besides, if the idea is to invade the country to incorporate some separatist regions, it doesn't make sense to destroy its economic basis and end up with a huge refugee problem and a completely deserted land you just conquered. This is basically propaganda for gullible Americans that never traveled to Eastern Europe.
    - rewmie 3y ago

bugglebeetle 3y ago

[flagged]

bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
What you described could be summarized as ”useless”.
justrealist 3y ago
[flagged]
- yard2010 3y ago
  You don't have to be snarky it is what it is
yard2010 3y ago
Forget about humanity, there are like 100-200 more people that can buy a small country that have to have more money there
kalleboo 3y ago
To be fair, aside from the arms dealing (which I'm probably just unaware of), Japanese corporate culture has done all of those things as well
Eisenstein 3y ago
You forgot 'cultural hegemony'.