The rise of the air purifier industry
how honda lost its mojo – and the mission to get it back
by：Yovog
2023-06-14
When his red and white Honda McLaren roared on the finish line, the driver blew a punch.
This is the Suzuka of Japan, ranked 1988, and Senna has just become the world champion of f1 for the first time.
McLaren and its engine maker, Honda, were unstoppable that year and their riders won all but one of the 16 Grand Prix races.
Honda also succeeded outside the track.
In the 1970 s, its engineers improved fuel efficiency and clean emissions standards for CVCC engines.
In the 1980 s, Civic and Accord cars were redefining American family cars as the engine pushed Sena to many victories.
In 1997, Honda became the first batch to launch
EV Plus, an electric battery car that meets California\'s zero emission requirements.
From the moment Sena jumped forward for nearly 30 years, Honda is also moving fast.
On the track, Honda McLaren\'s partnership was in trouble: The team didn\'t have a win this season and McLaren was losing patience with its engine suppliers and talking about breaking up.
On the way, Honda was troubled by the recall.
Since 2008, the United States has recalled more than 11 million vehicles due to airbag failures.
There are five in 2013 and 2014. to-
The Fit and Vezel hybrids are recalled due to transmission defects.
Honda lost to Tesla and other companies in electric cars.
\"There is no doubt that we have lost our magic as an engineering company that makes Honda,\" said chief executive hachigadeys.
Hachigo joined Honda in 1982 as an engineer and became Honda\'s chief executive in June 2015.
Now, he wants to revive a culture that encourages engineers to take risks and return to the corporate structure that protects innovators from cost-conscious bureaucracy --cutting.
To help him achieve this, he said, he tapped the idea of a small group of Honda engineers, managers and planners.
The team is following the drive for Lockheed Martin aircraft development, Apple computer design and self-
Driving Technology at Google.
In the interview, more than 20 current and former executives and engineers at Honda\'s factories in Japan, China and the United States avoided what they said led to Honda\'s decline as an innovator.
They also revealed new details about the company\'s efforts to rediscover its creative spark.
They said that Honda was \"monozukuri\" in Japan \"(\"Make things \")
Manufacturing methods.
They said that this culture of incremental improvement and production line efficiency, known as \"improvement\", served the company well in the decades after World War II, but today\'s challenge-self
Driving a car-a more flexible approach is needed.
Most importantly, they say, over the past 20 years, company executives in Tokyo have been given too much control over R & D.
In their view, this leads to shareholder value taking precedence over innovation.
People are reluctant to attract talent from outside Japan.
In the process of seeking to provide services to shareholders, Honda seeks to maximize sales and profits, and matches the product range of Toyota, Japan\'s main competitor.
\"The result is that when we are obsessed with Toyota and beat it in the market, we start to look like Toyota.
At first, we began to forget why we existed as a company, \"said Yoshiyuki matsumoto, Honda\'s president and chief executive of R & D.
Honda\'s revenue has grown strongly since 2000, with a profit margin of 6.
The fiscal year ended March 31, 2017 was 0, compared with 7.
Toyota\'s price is 2 cents.
But Honda\'s car quality rankings have fallen from market research firm JD Power\'s seventh in its first quality study in 2000 to 20 in 2017.
Honda Civic has lost hope of meeting the interests of shareholders, which means controlling costs.
Honda Chief Executive Takeo Fukui broke the company\'s tradition between 2003 and 2009, that is, about how the technical manager will allocate the revenue to the technical department, according to Honda\'s current and former executives and engineers.
When Takanobu Ito replaced Fukui as chief executive officer in 2009, he further strengthened control over the design phase.
The source said that he did so by moving several senior positions in the technical department from the R & D department to the company headquarters in Tokyo, with the main automotive center of the R & D department located near the yuduong Palace, on the one-hour train north of the capital city
Ito and Fukui did not answer the written questions.
According to engineers responsible for the redesign of the model in 2007, Honda\'s popular Civic car was one of the victims of these changes.
Known for its outstanding engineering, reliability and economics, Civic is one of Honda\'s best-selling cars.
\"From get-
Go, the project is actually meant to save costs, \"said Mitsuru Horikoshi, chief engineer of the redesign.
To this end, the global automotive business unit, led by the future chief executive Ito, decided by the technical department that the redesigned Civic would use many of the same components and systems as the previous models, the front and rear suspension system and the front of the car are included.
Citizen engineer Horikoshi completed the first design by February 2008, identified the basic engineering points, and completed a more detailed design by April.
When rising gasoline, steel and other prices pushed up the manufacturing cost per vehicle by 1,200 to $1,400, Horikoshi\'s team improved their design to improve the fuel economy of the car
In early July 2008, they asked management to approve their plans at a conference in Torrance, California, Honda\'s US sales headquarters.
Horikoshi recalled that Ito, head of global cars, said he would review the design overnight.
Ito came back the next morning and told the team to make the car smaller and cheaper and finish the redesign by the end of that month.
Ito basically told us to bring our design back to the first plan with a cost chopping knife.
\"It\'s just unheard.
This is unprecedented . \"
In order to meet the specifications of Ito, Mr. Horikoshi used cheaper materials and made the car smaller, the length was shortened by 45mm and the width was shortened by 25mm.
He also shortened the wheelbase between the front and rear shafts by 30mm.
A former leader in Honda\'s R & D division said the company was \"stuck in a deeper bunker mentality and turned into our products.
It was cut, cut, and reduced the price of our car \".
By the end of 2008, Horikoshi\'s team had completed the civic design.
Half a year later than planned, they are still $200 less than the cost target per vehicle.
\"I \'ve put my pants on my ankles-nothing is more important than that,\" said Horikoshi . \".
When the 2012 model annual civic was launched in 2011, it was criticized in a series.
The influential American magazine Consumer Report has removed the car from the recommendation list for the first time since it began rating the car in 1993.
It criticized the new citizens for their poor indoor quality and uneven ride.
Matsumoto, R & D director, said the incident was a lesson that creativity should not be sacrificed at the altar of shareholder value.
Matsumoto said that in the previous Honda mission in Thailand and India, he looked at the headquarters from a distance and recognized the lack of creativity there.
\"We have to be allowed to go to the wild sometimes.
If you only run a technology center from an efficiency perspective, you will kill this place.
That\'s what Honda is.
\"We don\'t want people at headquarters to tell engineers what to do,\" he said . \".
Honda returned to the drawing.
The redesigned model, which replaced 2012 Civic cars, was rated by car reporters as 2016 North American cars this year.
Ito and Fukui did not answer the Reuters question about citizens.
A former executive said the decision to reduce costs was made in the context of a global economic slowdown.
Honda\'s chief spokesman, Natsuno Asanuma, said the focus on shareholder value under previous management was \"for the future of the company \".
Asia-Cao Guowei
SaysHonda, Pacific consulting director at IHS Markit Automotive, failed to keep up with the suspension and transmission during his tenure at Fukui and Ito, but the company did a good enough financial job to cover up the issue
\"One might argue that Honda is doing almost as well with lower investment, but it\'s hard not to see them no longer leading in some areas of technology,\" Cao said . \" Headquartered in Shanghai.
Honda\'s rivals, such as Ford, did not control costs to the same extent, Cao said.
While Honda bosses are tightening their budget for 2012 Civic cars, they are also looking for savings in research and development.
Other car companies are investing heavily in green technology, in which Honda has launched electric car battery cars in 1997, becoming the leader, one of the first electric cars of a large car manufacturer.
But while rivals are stepping up their investment, Honda is also retreating.
Fukui, who became Honda\'s chief executive in 2003, thinks Honda has too many areas of research, said four current and former executives and engineers.
So Honda reduced the work of the plug
In the battery electric car, and put its confidence in hydrogen-fuelled car.
When Honda got back to the plug
In the car market at the end of 2000, it had lost to its competitors for several years.
Honda finally came up with a competitive plug.
The car in 2013, 16 years after its original electric car.
It is still chasing companies like Tesla.
Mr. Fukui did not answer any questions.
Two former engineers said Mr Fukui was calculating that advanced battery technology would be commoditized so Honda could buy it if necessary.
The former engineer said the assumption was correct.
Frustrated talentFor for too long, Honda has ignored the potential of its employees outside Japan, damaging the company\'s largest market for saysErik Berkman, Honda\'s head of technology in front of the US\'s technology department.
Until recently, Honda\'s management team, board and operations officials were both male and Japanese.
The company named its first foreign companyJapanese-Brazilian)
She was the first female board member three years ago.
In the fall of 2013, Berkman gave a speech at the Honda engineers and researchers meeting in Motegi, Japan.
His message is clear: it\'s time for Honda to use the mental power of all its engineers.
Berkman told about 500 viewers that American researchers, some of whom have been working at Honda for more than 20 years, are seen as students, including senior leaders of the company.
\"We don\'t want to be \'covenant servants\',\" Berkman said \'. \".
\"My attitude is: \'This is my company too.
The diversified development of Honda\'s interior, especially Honda\'s R & D department, is our direction.
Over the years, many competent engineers and researchers in the United States have left Honda frustrated by being ignored, Berkman said.
\"Many colleagues (in the US)
\"I think Japanese bosses are too controlling to take the risks we think are reasonable,\" he said . \"
According to Berkman and two other attendees, many of Motegi\'s listeners, including senior managers, congratulated him on his presentation.
But soon after, he was downgraded to a Honda North American technical supervisor and was reassigned to a more junior planning position in another division.
\"Maybe it has nothing to do with the speech.
It seems to me like this.
\"I\'m kind of like feeding my hands,\" he said . \".
Honda declined to comment.
Berkman said she decided to retire from a company he has worked for 33 years.
\"I have been planning to retire for years and feel that it is the right time,\" he said . \".
Matsumoto, R & D director, admitted in an interview with Reuters that Honda\'s technology and R & D staff lacked diversity.
\"You only see the Japanese face in this place,\" he said . \".
\"But we are repositioning technology centers in the United States, Thailand and China in order to play a more satellite-like role in Japan\'s central laboratory, thus encouraging people to communicate. Pureblood-
Ism did not cut it.
This is our growing consensus.
Japan\'s manufacturing industry, especially the auto industry, is booming in the post-economic era.
In the war era, Japan\'s reverence for manufacturing processes was encapsulated by utilizing stable design improvements and the monozukuri principle of lean manufacturing.
The purpose is to produce one-
The third quality defect
Produce cars with half the factory space, half the capital and half the engineering time.
After years of tempering, these efforts have improved the quality and reliability of Japanese cars, so that 1980 consumers in the United States began to choose Japanese cars instead of cars made in the United States.
Today, however, the industry is facing new challenges.
Artificial intelligence and self
Driving cars forces automakers to rethink the way they design and produce cars.
\"The auto industry in Japan
World War II improved products by cutting day after day.
This will not cut it in the face of the rise of destructive self
\"Driving, connected car technology and electrified,\" said Matsumoto . \".
\"A new era requires a new approach.
Honda is making some changes to deal with these disruptive forces.
These measures include the transfer of technology management from Tokyo to give the technology sector more autonomy.
Honda has reached an agreement with a third party to speed up the development of its Smart car
Connect the electric car.
This includes an agreement with Hitachi to develop and produce motors for plugs
Reached an agreement with GM to produce hydrogen fuel cell power systems in the United States.
Honda is also in talks with Google to offer a joint test of self-driving vehicles.
Driving technology.
According to Hachigo and Matsumoto, a key force of change within the company is a small group of engineers, managers and planners who are working silently behind the scenes to transform the company.
The group\'s presence within the company is little known.
The team works near Kyobashi near Tokyo Station.
Honda\'s bosses declined to identify their members.
They did share some of the ideas it advocated.
These measures include streamlining Honda\'s product development process, which has become bloated with the expansion of the company\'s size, developing basic technologies for a range of vehicles to develop cars more effectively, and respond to changes in customer tastes faster.
The group also hopes to increase the use of virtual engineering tools such as computer-aided design to speed up development and is working on improved designs for plug-insIn a battery car.
Matsumoto hopes the organization will bring about change.
But he did not think the change would come soon.
\"Almost always change-any change-starts at the edge,\" he said . \".
\"This set of evidence suggests that we still lost our lost spell somewhere in this company.
We have DNA left on us.
This is the Suzuka of Japan, ranked 1988, and Senna has just become the world champion of f1 for the first time.
McLaren and its engine maker, Honda, were unstoppable that year and their riders won all but one of the 16 Grand Prix races.
Honda also succeeded outside the track.
In the 1970 s, its engineers improved fuel efficiency and clean emissions standards for CVCC engines.
In the 1980 s, Civic and Accord cars were redefining American family cars as the engine pushed Sena to many victories.
In 1997, Honda became the first batch to launch
EV Plus, an electric battery car that meets California\'s zero emission requirements.
From the moment Sena jumped forward for nearly 30 years, Honda is also moving fast.
On the track, Honda McLaren\'s partnership was in trouble: The team didn\'t have a win this season and McLaren was losing patience with its engine suppliers and talking about breaking up.
On the way, Honda was troubled by the recall.
Since 2008, the United States has recalled more than 11 million vehicles due to airbag failures.
There are five in 2013 and 2014. to-
The Fit and Vezel hybrids are recalled due to transmission defects.
Honda lost to Tesla and other companies in electric cars.
\"There is no doubt that we have lost our magic as an engineering company that makes Honda,\" said chief executive hachigadeys.
Hachigo joined Honda in 1982 as an engineer and became Honda\'s chief executive in June 2015.
Now, he wants to revive a culture that encourages engineers to take risks and return to the corporate structure that protects innovators from cost-conscious bureaucracy --cutting.
To help him achieve this, he said, he tapped the idea of a small group of Honda engineers, managers and planners.
The team is following the drive for Lockheed Martin aircraft development, Apple computer design and self-
Driving Technology at Google.
In the interview, more than 20 current and former executives and engineers at Honda\'s factories in Japan, China and the United States avoided what they said led to Honda\'s decline as an innovator.
They also revealed new details about the company\'s efforts to rediscover its creative spark.
They said that Honda was \"monozukuri\" in Japan \"(\"Make things \")
Manufacturing methods.
They said that this culture of incremental improvement and production line efficiency, known as \"improvement\", served the company well in the decades after World War II, but today\'s challenge-self
Driving a car-a more flexible approach is needed.
Most importantly, they say, over the past 20 years, company executives in Tokyo have been given too much control over R & D.
In their view, this leads to shareholder value taking precedence over innovation.
People are reluctant to attract talent from outside Japan.
In the process of seeking to provide services to shareholders, Honda seeks to maximize sales and profits, and matches the product range of Toyota, Japan\'s main competitor.
\"The result is that when we are obsessed with Toyota and beat it in the market, we start to look like Toyota.
At first, we began to forget why we existed as a company, \"said Yoshiyuki matsumoto, Honda\'s president and chief executive of R & D.
Honda\'s revenue has grown strongly since 2000, with a profit margin of 6.
The fiscal year ended March 31, 2017 was 0, compared with 7.
Toyota\'s price is 2 cents.
But Honda\'s car quality rankings have fallen from market research firm JD Power\'s seventh in its first quality study in 2000 to 20 in 2017.
Honda Civic has lost hope of meeting the interests of shareholders, which means controlling costs.
Honda Chief Executive Takeo Fukui broke the company\'s tradition between 2003 and 2009, that is, about how the technical manager will allocate the revenue to the technical department, according to Honda\'s current and former executives and engineers.
When Takanobu Ito replaced Fukui as chief executive officer in 2009, he further strengthened control over the design phase.
The source said that he did so by moving several senior positions in the technical department from the R & D department to the company headquarters in Tokyo, with the main automotive center of the R & D department located near the yuduong Palace, on the one-hour train north of the capital city
Ito and Fukui did not answer the written questions.
According to engineers responsible for the redesign of the model in 2007, Honda\'s popular Civic car was one of the victims of these changes.
Known for its outstanding engineering, reliability and economics, Civic is one of Honda\'s best-selling cars.
\"From get-
Go, the project is actually meant to save costs, \"said Mitsuru Horikoshi, chief engineer of the redesign.
To this end, the global automotive business unit, led by the future chief executive Ito, decided by the technical department that the redesigned Civic would use many of the same components and systems as the previous models, the front and rear suspension system and the front of the car are included.
Citizen engineer Horikoshi completed the first design by February 2008, identified the basic engineering points, and completed a more detailed design by April.
When rising gasoline, steel and other prices pushed up the manufacturing cost per vehicle by 1,200 to $1,400, Horikoshi\'s team improved their design to improve the fuel economy of the car
In early July 2008, they asked management to approve their plans at a conference in Torrance, California, Honda\'s US sales headquarters.
Horikoshi recalled that Ito, head of global cars, said he would review the design overnight.
Ito came back the next morning and told the team to make the car smaller and cheaper and finish the redesign by the end of that month.
Ito basically told us to bring our design back to the first plan with a cost chopping knife.
\"It\'s just unheard.
This is unprecedented . \"
In order to meet the specifications of Ito, Mr. Horikoshi used cheaper materials and made the car smaller, the length was shortened by 45mm and the width was shortened by 25mm.
He also shortened the wheelbase between the front and rear shafts by 30mm.
A former leader in Honda\'s R & D division said the company was \"stuck in a deeper bunker mentality and turned into our products.
It was cut, cut, and reduced the price of our car \".
By the end of 2008, Horikoshi\'s team had completed the civic design.
Half a year later than planned, they are still $200 less than the cost target per vehicle.
\"I \'ve put my pants on my ankles-nothing is more important than that,\" said Horikoshi . \".
When the 2012 model annual civic was launched in 2011, it was criticized in a series.
The influential American magazine Consumer Report has removed the car from the recommendation list for the first time since it began rating the car in 1993.
It criticized the new citizens for their poor indoor quality and uneven ride.
Matsumoto, R & D director, said the incident was a lesson that creativity should not be sacrificed at the altar of shareholder value.
Matsumoto said that in the previous Honda mission in Thailand and India, he looked at the headquarters from a distance and recognized the lack of creativity there.
\"We have to be allowed to go to the wild sometimes.
If you only run a technology center from an efficiency perspective, you will kill this place.
That\'s what Honda is.
\"We don\'t want people at headquarters to tell engineers what to do,\" he said . \".
Honda returned to the drawing.
The redesigned model, which replaced 2012 Civic cars, was rated by car reporters as 2016 North American cars this year.
Ito and Fukui did not answer the Reuters question about citizens.
A former executive said the decision to reduce costs was made in the context of a global economic slowdown.
Honda\'s chief spokesman, Natsuno Asanuma, said the focus on shareholder value under previous management was \"for the future of the company \".
Asia-Cao Guowei
SaysHonda, Pacific consulting director at IHS Markit Automotive, failed to keep up with the suspension and transmission during his tenure at Fukui and Ito, but the company did a good enough financial job to cover up the issue
\"One might argue that Honda is doing almost as well with lower investment, but it\'s hard not to see them no longer leading in some areas of technology,\" Cao said . \" Headquartered in Shanghai.
Honda\'s rivals, such as Ford, did not control costs to the same extent, Cao said.
While Honda bosses are tightening their budget for 2012 Civic cars, they are also looking for savings in research and development.
Other car companies are investing heavily in green technology, in which Honda has launched electric car battery cars in 1997, becoming the leader, one of the first electric cars of a large car manufacturer.
But while rivals are stepping up their investment, Honda is also retreating.
Fukui, who became Honda\'s chief executive in 2003, thinks Honda has too many areas of research, said four current and former executives and engineers.
So Honda reduced the work of the plug
In the battery electric car, and put its confidence in hydrogen-fuelled car.
When Honda got back to the plug
In the car market at the end of 2000, it had lost to its competitors for several years.
Honda finally came up with a competitive plug.
The car in 2013, 16 years after its original electric car.
It is still chasing companies like Tesla.
Mr. Fukui did not answer any questions.
Two former engineers said Mr Fukui was calculating that advanced battery technology would be commoditized so Honda could buy it if necessary.
The former engineer said the assumption was correct.
Frustrated talentFor for too long, Honda has ignored the potential of its employees outside Japan, damaging the company\'s largest market for saysErik Berkman, Honda\'s head of technology in front of the US\'s technology department.
Until recently, Honda\'s management team, board and operations officials were both male and Japanese.
The company named its first foreign companyJapanese-Brazilian)
She was the first female board member three years ago.
In the fall of 2013, Berkman gave a speech at the Honda engineers and researchers meeting in Motegi, Japan.
His message is clear: it\'s time for Honda to use the mental power of all its engineers.
Berkman told about 500 viewers that American researchers, some of whom have been working at Honda for more than 20 years, are seen as students, including senior leaders of the company.
\"We don\'t want to be \'covenant servants\',\" Berkman said \'. \".
\"My attitude is: \'This is my company too.
The diversified development of Honda\'s interior, especially Honda\'s R & D department, is our direction.
Over the years, many competent engineers and researchers in the United States have left Honda frustrated by being ignored, Berkman said.
\"Many colleagues (in the US)
\"I think Japanese bosses are too controlling to take the risks we think are reasonable,\" he said . \"
According to Berkman and two other attendees, many of Motegi\'s listeners, including senior managers, congratulated him on his presentation.
But soon after, he was downgraded to a Honda North American technical supervisor and was reassigned to a more junior planning position in another division.
\"Maybe it has nothing to do with the speech.
It seems to me like this.
\"I\'m kind of like feeding my hands,\" he said . \".
Honda declined to comment.
Berkman said she decided to retire from a company he has worked for 33 years.
\"I have been planning to retire for years and feel that it is the right time,\" he said . \".
Matsumoto, R & D director, admitted in an interview with Reuters that Honda\'s technology and R & D staff lacked diversity.
\"You only see the Japanese face in this place,\" he said . \".
\"But we are repositioning technology centers in the United States, Thailand and China in order to play a more satellite-like role in Japan\'s central laboratory, thus encouraging people to communicate. Pureblood-
Ism did not cut it.
This is our growing consensus.
Japan\'s manufacturing industry, especially the auto industry, is booming in the post-economic era.
In the war era, Japan\'s reverence for manufacturing processes was encapsulated by utilizing stable design improvements and the monozukuri principle of lean manufacturing.
The purpose is to produce one-
The third quality defect
Produce cars with half the factory space, half the capital and half the engineering time.
After years of tempering, these efforts have improved the quality and reliability of Japanese cars, so that 1980 consumers in the United States began to choose Japanese cars instead of cars made in the United States.
Today, however, the industry is facing new challenges.
Artificial intelligence and self
Driving cars forces automakers to rethink the way they design and produce cars.
\"The auto industry in Japan
World War II improved products by cutting day after day.
This will not cut it in the face of the rise of destructive self
\"Driving, connected car technology and electrified,\" said Matsumoto . \".
\"A new era requires a new approach.
Honda is making some changes to deal with these disruptive forces.
These measures include the transfer of technology management from Tokyo to give the technology sector more autonomy.
Honda has reached an agreement with a third party to speed up the development of its Smart car
Connect the electric car.
This includes an agreement with Hitachi to develop and produce motors for plugs
Reached an agreement with GM to produce hydrogen fuel cell power systems in the United States.
Honda is also in talks with Google to offer a joint test of self-driving vehicles.
Driving technology.
According to Hachigo and Matsumoto, a key force of change within the company is a small group of engineers, managers and planners who are working silently behind the scenes to transform the company.
The group\'s presence within the company is little known.
The team works near Kyobashi near Tokyo Station.
Honda\'s bosses declined to identify their members.
They did share some of the ideas it advocated.
These measures include streamlining Honda\'s product development process, which has become bloated with the expansion of the company\'s size, developing basic technologies for a range of vehicles to develop cars more effectively, and respond to changes in customer tastes faster.
The group also hopes to increase the use of virtual engineering tools such as computer-aided design to speed up development and is working on improved designs for plug-insIn a battery car.
Matsumoto hopes the organization will bring about change.
But he did not think the change would come soon.
\"Almost always change-any change-starts at the edge,\" he said . \".
\"This set of evidence suggests that we still lost our lost spell somewhere in this company.
We have DNA left on us.
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