A fun bit of history I learned from a retired Soviet Analyst...My analyst friend learned of this years later from his Russian counterpart, after finally being allowed to visit the country he had studied for so long so I'm guessing it's pretty accurate.
Sometime in the 80's, the Soviets brought in some Japanese industrial consultants as part of a modernization push for Soviet factories -- they had started to become aware that the sophistication of their industrial capabilities had more or less stagnated somewhere in the 1940's or 50's. Feeling pressure from an increasingly sophisticated U.S. and Europe, they wanted to know what it would take to catch up with the Japanese, then widely considered to have the best, most sophisticated manufacturing processes in the world.
The consultants came and toured some of the major manufacturing cities and facilities, taking notes, interviewing workers and managers, testing final output and raw materials quality, crunching numbers, analyzing the supply chain, that sort of thing. Finally they met with the Soviet leadership in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), home of some of the major industrial capacity of the Union.
After reviewing the findings for several hours, one of the Soviets, impatient with all the details finally spoke up, "yes yes yes...we know all this...what we want to know is, how long will it take, if we put all of our national resources behind it (meaning, a space race level effort), for us to catch up with the Japanese?"
Their reply?
"Forever"
Their analysis revealed that the systemic and social issues in the Soviet Union (as well as a combination of material resources and other odds and ends) were so bad, that no matter how much effort the Soviets put into upgrading their manufacturing processes, and no matter how long they put that effort forward, the Japanese would always be ahead.
The consultants were quickly rushed out of the country and the study was never spoken of again.
Within the decade, the Union had fallen and it was all a moot point anyway.
That reminds me of the book written by W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis, where he is consulting with a US auto manufacturer, and the manufacturer asks a similar question, "When will we catch up with Japan?" (paraphrased).
Because of Japanese continuous improvement, or Kaizen, it is difficult, if not impossible to do.
As long as one is constantly improving, the others cannot catch up.
> Because of Japanese continuous improvement, or Kaizen, it is difficult, if not impossible to do.
Oh great point! Yeah, the problem I think in most of these type of large systems migration choices is that they view only two discrete states, the present state and the target state -- and then try and build and plan for all contingencies. Some of the smarter ones try and define the target state primed to become the next present state with an eye towards a new target state, but in practice I don't think this style of thinking works very well.
In the Soviet example, they were looking at the present state of Japanese manufacturing capability and shooting for that as a target, while the Japanese were improving it every minute of every day. There is no goal in Kaizen, all that matters is the process of improvement. It's a very Zen way of looking at the world that I think thankfully is finding it's way into more modern principles of iterative development (it's amazing how ever-present Kaizen is in Western management training -- but I never got the impression that any of the texts really "got it", instead it's lots of discussion of studying it and trying to figure out how to adapt these two state processes to Kaizen principles without ever understanding the continuous nature of it).
A variation can be encountered during product management involved features and prices.
In more than a few cases, the product specifications for an update or a new product can indicate near feature parity with a current competitive product, usually with a small increment past that current product.
Not what the competitive products would offer at the completion of the development cycle you're launching; not where the competing product would be in six or eighteen months; after however long it takes to get your new product to market.
Leading a moving target by an appropriate amount is a regular challenge of product development.
And you can win against Kaizen by going asymmetric. By allowing your competitor to optimize what you cause to be the wrong problem.
Kaizen isn't a perpetual advantage. Just look at what demographics are doing to the Japanese economy and manufacturing base. Korea is the new Japan in many ways, and any honest Japanese manager will willingly tell you as much. Korea came from literally nowhere to catch up to Japan, despite kaizen.
Disruption, rising costs, aging demographics, etc., can easily shift industrial edge from one country or region to another.
I'm not denigrating kaizen, mind you. It's still a valuable principle, and one that will continue to confer many advantages to the Japanese industrial base. But it's not a sufficient advantage in perpetuity.
Comments
A fun bit of history I learned from a retired Soviet Analyst...My analyst friend learned of this years later from his Russian counterpart, after finally being allowed to visit the country he had studied for so long so I'm guessing it's pretty accurate.
Sometime in the 80's, the Soviets brought in some Japanese industrial consultants as part of a modernization push for Soviet factories -- they had started to become aware that the sophistication of their industrial capabilities had more or less stagnated somewhere in the 1940's or 50's. Feeling pressure from an increasingly sophisticated U.S. and Europe, they wanted to know what it would take to catch up with the Japanese, then widely considered to have the best, most sophisticated manufacturing processes in the world.
The consultants came and toured some of the major manufacturing cities and facilities, taking notes, interviewing workers and managers, testing final output and raw materials quality, crunching numbers, analyzing the supply chain, that sort of thing. Finally they met with the Soviet leadership in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), home of some of the major industrial capacity of the Union.
After reviewing the findings for several hours, one of the Soviets, impatient with all the details finally spoke up, "yes yes yes...we know all this...what we want to know is, how long will it take, if we put all of our national resources behind it (meaning, a space race level effort), for us to catch up with the Japanese?"
Their reply?
"Forever"
Their analysis revealed that the systemic and social issues in the Soviet Union (as well as a combination of material resources and other odds and ends) were so bad, that no matter how much effort the Soviets put into upgrading their manufacturing processes, and no matter how long they put that effort forward, the Japanese would always be ahead.
The consultants were quickly rushed out of the country and the study was never spoken of again.
Within the decade, the Union had fallen and it was all a moot point anyway.
That reminds me of the book written by W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis, where he is consulting with a US auto manufacturer, and the manufacturer asks a similar question, "When will we catch up with Japan?" (paraphrased).
Because of Japanese continuous improvement, or Kaizen, it is difficult, if not impossible to do.
As long as one is constantly improving, the others cannot catch up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
Interesting that both these anecdotes mirror the insight behind the OODA loop: that the tempo of decision/adaptation is key.
I believe this basic insight applies whenever your actions now influence your rate of gain in the future.
> Because of Japanese continuous improvement, or Kaizen, it is difficult, if not impossible to do.
Oh great point! Yeah, the problem I think in most of these type of large systems migration choices is that they view only two discrete states, the present state and the target state -- and then try and build and plan for all contingencies. Some of the smarter ones try and define the target state primed to become the next present state with an eye towards a new target state, but in practice I don't think this style of thinking works very well.
In the Soviet example, they were looking at the present state of Japanese manufacturing capability and shooting for that as a target, while the Japanese were improving it every minute of every day. There is no goal in Kaizen, all that matters is the process of improvement. It's a very Zen way of looking at the world that I think thankfully is finding it's way into more modern principles of iterative development (it's amazing how ever-present Kaizen is in Western management training -- but I never got the impression that any of the texts really "got it", instead it's lots of discussion of studying it and trying to figure out how to adapt these two state processes to Kaizen principles without ever understanding the continuous nature of it).
A variation can be encountered during product management involved features and prices.
In more than a few cases, the product specifications for an update or a new product can indicate near feature parity with a current competitive product, usually with a small increment past that current product.
Not what the competitive products would offer at the completion of the development cycle you're launching; not where the competing product would be in six or eighteen months; after however long it takes to get your new product to market.
Leading a moving target by an appropriate amount is a regular challenge of product development.
And you can win against Kaizen by going asymmetric. By allowing your competitor to optimize what you cause to be the wrong problem.
+1
Kaizen isn't a perpetual advantage. Just look at what demographics are doing to the Japanese economy and manufacturing base. Korea is the new Japan in many ways, and any honest Japanese manager will willingly tell you as much. Korea came from literally nowhere to catch up to Japan, despite kaizen.
Disruption, rising costs, aging demographics, etc., can easily shift industrial edge from one country or region to another.
I'm not denigrating kaizen, mind you. It's still a valuable principle, and one that will continue to confer many advantages to the Japanese industrial base. But it's not a sufficient advantage in perpetuity.
>As long as one is constantly improving, the others cannot catch up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#Achilles_and...