On Sat, 25 Jul 1998 12:29, ONLYOLYBW@xxxxxxx wrote:
>In a message dated 7/25/98 1:11:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> timberwolf@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
><< Rumour it may be, but "mongering"? It is quite a common practice in the
> Japanese camera industry (and, it seems, in Japan in general) to contract
> out manufacturing to companies which would in the West -- and especially
> in the U.S. -- be regarded as blood enemies.
> Hälsningar/Regards
> Lars Bergquist >>
>Hi Lars,
>I was told by some Japanese Marketing and Engineers visitors here in the US
> that it is very common for engineers to change Jobs / Companies in Japan.
> Therefore, they also take along their ideas to the new company. This is the
> reason that many competitors have very similar products.
>BW
I'll have to disagree with you here and agree with Lars. The fact is
that until very recently, the Japanese companies typically offer their
employees the equivalent of "life-time employment". A company would
hire someone fresh out of school and train that person for position(s)
within that company -- if a job disappears, the employee is trained
for a different position, all within the company -- until the employee
retires. The concept of quitting one company and joining another is
a very recent phenomenon.
On the other hand, as Lars said, the Japanese companies do cooperate
among themselves, much more than in the Western countries. There is
no concept of "anti-trust" -- if it is good for Japan, then it is a
good thing to do.
Finally, contract manufacturing is quite common in certain industries
in the US as well, witness the semiconductor business, where IBM
manufactures not just the PowerPC, but also the Cyrix, AMD, WinChip,
and at one time Intel, processors. Intel is manufacturing the Alpha
for Compaq/DEC besides our own Pentium(TM) processors. Similar things
also happen in the US auto and major appliance industries.
-Dan
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