Yokogawa Acquires US Company with Unique Gas Analysis Technology

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announced the acquisition of Analytical Specialties, Inc. (ASI), a company with a unique gas analyzer technology. Yokogawa's North American subsidiary, acquired all the stock of ASI on April 1, 2008.

With this acquisition, Yokogawa is adding the TruePeak Tunable Diode Laser Gas Analyzers to its analyzer lineup and strengthening its ability to deliver comprehensive solutions in the industrial automation market.

My apologies. Due to spam filters and other reasons, the weblogs have been blocked. The problem has now been corrected, and your comments are now coming through. Please continue your weblogs.

Jim Pinto

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Lots of new upper management at Omron Electronics (2 top dogs recently hired were former leaders at a Rockwell/allen-bradley multi-million dollar distributor). Lots of focus on distribution and marketing. What can this mean for Omron's future in the US, where they've previously been weak?

Sounds like the company to watch for a complete automation solution - truly complete with Vision and RFID in addition to the plcs, hmi, networks, software (only need 1 package to tie it all together), sensors. They have the best quality products, making new investments and acquisitions, and are focused on customer needs from a product portfolio offering.

Does anyone have any news about their transformation? I've been an avid Omron user for several years, switched out my allen-bradley and siemens in the plant, and was wanting to know more about their recent changes. Very exciting times.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Omron's been going through a lot of Sr. Management changes over the past year. Do you have any comments on where you see Omron headed and whether or not this will make them a key player in the United States?

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Yokogawa wins a BIG Chevron order away from Honeywell. Why hasn't this made more news??

Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Japanese major electrical machinery maker, Yokogawa Electric Corp., said Wednesday it has received an order from U.S. energy company Chevron Corp. for an oil refinery management system, estimated at more than 100 billion yen (US$813 million; euro606.6 million).

Yokogawa Electric Wins Chevron Order - Yahoo Finance
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070620/japan_yokogawa_chevron.html?.v=1

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Omron technology is extremely reliable, and remains undiscovered by most of North American. For hardware costs that are lower than major US based automation solutions, have greater open communication and flexibility, and significantly lower software maintenance costs (virtually zero), Omron is one company that should be thoroughly considered for total automation. For those who do not investigate Omron, thank you for leaving this valuable source of technology and support to us who enjoy currently use and enjoy it.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Responding to the previous weblog, what is there to comment on? I know of several major suppliers to the automobile industry that use STI safety equipment with Omron controllers for their presses and other equipment; it's just Omron trying to get a bigger share in that particular market. They (Omron) face major hurdles in growing in the U.S., but competition is always good.

Friday, September 8, 2006

I am surprised that no one has commented on the acquisition Omron made of the STI safety business.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Omron has great technology -- however it will never penetrate the North American Market. Most automation solutions begin at the PLC level. AB, GE, Square D and Siemens are marketed through Tier One distributors. A smart sensor revolution is about to take place and Omron could change the market landscape. But it will not happen from the Chicago's suburbs.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

I supposed with the explosive use of IPV6 and 4G communication technologies, with which Japanese companies have the upper hand now, we will see the power shift from US and Europe to Asia, in terms of building applications into control technology based on M2M. This push is lead by Japan and Korea (two manufacturing power houses, other than China). The US and most of Europe are still try to recope their investment in the "wired" world, where Japan and Korea will treat as traditional market leaders mainly from non-Asia players.

Friday, April 15, 2005

How can Yokogawa even hope of becoming the top Automation supplier with the current and long standing political anti Japan sentiment in China? China remains the biggest growth market for Automation and with the current strong anti Japanese sentiment in China leading to demonstrations and attacks on Japanese interest and visitors. The US base automation players like Emerson and Honeywell are doing far better in China than Yokogawa.

Monday, February 7, 2005 - Yokogawa targets the top-spot:

Proclaiming its intention to become the world's leading process automation supplier, Yokogawa unveiled it's new Vigilant Plant system concept, at the ARC Forum on February 2, 2005 in Orlando, Florida.

Yokogawa's President and CEO, Isao Uchida, openly boasted (unusual for the Japanese) that Vigilant Plant systems will win a leading market-share for Yokogawa by the year 2010.

Extract from JimPinto.com eNews, 7 February, 2005. This includes Pinto Pointers and commentary.

Click to read:Yokogawa targets the top-spot

Thursday, February 03, 2005

From the CONTROL magazine weblog:

We're coming to get you and we're coming on strong! That's the message Yokogawa CEO Isao Uchida delivered last night at the introduction of their new DCS concept, Vigilant Plant. Pointing out that this is Yokogawa's 90th year in the controls industry, Uchida-san claimed large sales increases "outside Japan": "20% sales increases outside Japan annually since 2000, so we are gaining market share. Some of the competitors in this room are not happy," he said, "but competition is...competition." Uchida-san declared his corporate intention to be number one by 2010.

Now, one can argue that combined with the sales decreases inside Japan, Yokogawa's recent growth rate is really about 10%, which is in line with every other major automation vendor, and in fact, one of those "competitors in this room" did argue that with me over dinner later. But the fact remains that Uchida has definitely thrown down the gauntlet to Emerson and the rest of the Big Six.

Click to read:CONTROL magazine weblog

Saturday, 22 January, 2005

From - JimPinto.com eNews #173, 22 Jan. 2005

Omron's total revenue in 2004 was $5.5B, with growth of about 10% and profit of about 5%, very healthy for a Japanese company. Omron has been consistently profitable over the years, recovered from a loss in 2002, with essentially break-even in 2003.

Omron's largest business segment (39%) is industrial automation at $2.2B. The company has a very broad range of products - PLCs, I/O, networks, sensors, vision systems, operator interface, temperature and process controls, printed-circuit-board inspection equipment, timers, counters, panel meters, power supplies, servo drives, motors and inverters; the list of products is almost overwhelming. Omron's supports this broad range with strong local engineering capability.

Omron's automation business has grown consistently over several years. About 50% of automation revenue is in Japan, with N. America contributing 8%, Europe 26%, Asia 4% and China 8%.

Other Omron businesses include Electronic Components (15%), Automotive Electronics (10%), Social Systems (traffic and financial services - 23%) and Healthcare (8%) - you'll find Omron blood-pressure monitors and thermometers in many US department stores.

Click to read:Omron sustains unique mission with profitable growth in 2004

Monday, November 1, 2004

News is emerging about a major reorganisation of Yokogawa Europe under the direction of the European President Harry Hauptmeijer. The changes will see a consolidation of operations and a strengthening of management in the Dutch HQ.

Has Hauptmeijer been talking to Van der Veer at Shell (a big Yokogawa customer), who also announced last week that it intends to consolidate management control of its operations into their Dutch HQ in the Hague?

Tuesday, October 5, 2004 - Re: Omron:

It would be nice to know what's really going on at Omron USA. Look at their new business strategies and talk to their long time, loyal employees. There is some real talent going to waste over there. It's a real shame....

Saturday, February 28, 2004 - from ARC Automation News:

Yokogawa Restructures: Focus on Measurement and Control

Yokogawa is accelerating its effort to restructure its businesses. This restructuring consists of a business reorganization focusing on the company's main business lines of measurement and control, the consolidation and merger of subsidiaries, and the redistribution of management resources.

For the measurement business, which includes communication, test and measurement, and automatic test equipment (ATE) segments, the strategy will be to focus on waveform, optical, digital, and wireless measuring instruments. The ATE segment has also been designated as one that adds high value and it will be strengthened. Yokogawa aims to become one of the top three suppliers worldwide in this segment by fiscal year 2008. In the ATE segment, the company is set on exceeding a 50% share of selected markets by fiscal year 2005.

In the control business, the company will focus on overseas markets, high value added products, and business solutions. China will be receiving particular emphasis. The company plans to introduce competitive products continuously. Yokogawa aims to exceed a 50% share of the Japan industrial automation market and to achieve the top share in the world industrial automation market by fiscal year 2010.

Thursday, September 25, 2003 - from: Asia-Pacific user:

According to my experiences in working with Yokogawa and other control companies, Yokogawa normally offers the best products with lower cost. Surely the local company can make a very minimal margin but in fact, the Japan parent company needs to absorb the loss. Some unfair competitive practices are used as sales strategies.

Many Asia-Pacific customers have found that they can buy a product with the cost of USD 8,000 if they buy with Yokogawa application package. BUT if they want to buy only a product to use with for example Honeywell / Aspen / OSI packages, the cost may eat up to 70,000 USD.

Think ahead when purchasing products that need to work only Yokogawa. Yokogawa tries to cut price when they need the job, and will mark up the price when you need maintenance.

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - from Gerry Shand [gshand@babco-electric.com]:

The three planks mentioned in a previous weblog (3 Feb. 2003):

Yokogawa's basic business strategies are built on the following planks:
• Bullet-proof hardware with exceptional reliability.
• Software that may not be cutting edge, but actually works when released, without bugs.
• Competitive price.

Friday, July 4, 2003

Harry Hauptmeijer is not the only ex-Foxboro employee. They have added John Lewis (released from Houston to APV NY and laid off from APV) as VP North America (April), and others from the Houston Foxboro Office, Construction and Supply Chain Management. This to help the struggling office cope with work from the Saudia job, as well as the newly aquired Shell work, after which Shell quickly noticed the weakness of the field engineering group.

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Yokogawa financials for the complete year ended March 31, 2003 are not available on their website. Does anyone know where they are available?

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Please make no mistake, Stardom is not a DCS. It uses Fuji PLC I/O and it does not have the integrated diagnostics - not the integrity you would expect from a DCS. Check its redundancy before you buy, you may concider the product redundant! This is why CS3000 will be maintained as flagship prodcut (their terminolgy) for a couple of years.

Some weblog refers to Hans Dik as the manager who maintained a reasonable structure in Europe. Hans has retired. His successor is Harry Hauptmeijer who is also ex-Foxboro Netherlands but with a strong engineering background only. Customers in Europe should be aware of a hidden restrucuring which has started under Harry's "leadership". Lay-offs are on a one for one basis and therefore not reported. Yokogawa has lost good and experienced sales people in the UK. The European system center lost their knowledge on Fieldbus, and is no longer allowed to provide services to the African territories. All handled from France. Yokogawa Europe in Apeldoorn survives on a long term contract with the Dutch Gas board, and left overs from the Middel East ONLY!. No meat on the bone. Think long term before you buy.

Saturday, May 10, 2003 - from a customer who is considering buying CS 3000:

• Most DCS requirements can be covered by systems capable of 5,000 I/O
• Yokogawa Stardom has an upper limit of 5,000 I/O
• Stardom is much more modern than Centum (web based; small distrbuted controllers)
• Stardom has a better cost position than CS
• Yokogawa normally has the lowest sell price
• There is no clear separation of functionality between Stardom and CS
• If it is announced that Stardom is replacing CS, sales of Centum would decline quickly
• Will the new Stardom (build in 2002) prevail over Centum (early 1980s)?

Thursday, April 24, 2003

Yokogawa sells only on discounts.The gentleman who is supposed to be from Yokogawa sales claims that they never sells anything below 50% discount; that is not correct. We have, as an enduser, bought Yokogawa EJA transmitters for $200/each, which is below 50% of their List Price. The Yokogawa sales engineer who sold this unit to us, told us this works out to be around 85% off the List Price. Can anyone dispute this price? We have heard that this level of discounting has caused the CEO of Yokogawa India to lose his job recently.

Sunday, April 20, 2003 - JimPinto.com eNews (extract):

Yokogawa loss grows - major restructuring continues

Yokogawa's results for the year ended 31 Mar. 03 have not yet been formally announced, but sources suggest that profits are much worse than the initial estimated net loss of $110m - perhaps $ 200-250m. This includes a special loss of $100m for restructuring costs at Ando Electric (Yokogawa controlling stake last year) plus $75m on reduced value of shareholdings. This on top of last year's net loss of $196bn.

Click to read: Yokogawa loss grows - major restructuring continues

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Two Japanese acquisitions comes to mind. One would be when Proface (Digital Corp) purchased Xycom a couple of years ago, and another when Omron bought IDM. With regard to the Japanese "complex" of being defeated when buying or merging with another company, it is of interest to note that foreign companies have been acquiring them for years.

A brief final note on the comments regarding Japanese and German companies, and the superior feelings they have over US management: It is exactly the same when a US company is operating in Germany or Japan; the US management looks down on them as well.

Tuesday, March 25, 2003 - concerning Pinto's comments about Japanese companies not acquiring/being acquired (previous weblog):

Tokyo, Japan - May 14, 2002
Yokogawa and Ando Join Forces to be One of the World’s Top Three Test & Measurement Suppliers - Yokogawa Acquires All Shares of Ando through Stock Swap

Pinto comment: Yes, I know about Yokogawa and Ando - indeed an exception. This merger/acquisition did NOT have good results for either Yokogawa or Ando.

Does anyone know of any other Japanese acquisition, big or small?

March 20, 2003 news release :
Yaskawa Electric and Omron establish a joint venture company

Omron Corporation and Yaskawa Electric Corporation are joining forces to strengthen motion control product sales in the European market. A joint venture company will be established through each company's European subsidiaries, with joint sales activities to begin from April 1st, 2003.

Someone asked: "Do you believe this means any merger preparation? What is the backstage message?"

Pinto comment: Japanese companies do NOT acquire or merge - the Japanese culture is not conducive to successful acquisitions. The acquired company feels "defeated" and the acquiring company feels "victorious". In my opinion, this agreement between Omron and Yaskawa is just a business alliance, nothing more.

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

The previous weblog (below) is naive and simply wrong! This person clearly has not been involved with or looked at publically available large-tender records, where Yokogawa's bid is as much as 50% to 75% or more below list price.

Monday, February 3, 2003

My employment history has been with Foxboro for many years, and two stints with Yokogawa, including the present.

Firstly, I have never seen Yokogawa sell a product below cost, even in the good years when prices in Japan were buoyant. So, through lack of evidence, I cannot agree with your inference that Yokogawa "dumps" products on the international marketplace. Maybe things are different in the USA, but I don't think so - most of Yokogawa's customers are multinationals and I can't see any of them letting Yokogawa get away with selling a product at a significantly higher price in Europe or Asia than in the USA.

Yokogawa does, however, sell at low margins, which are felt to be necessary when first penetrating a marketplace to establish some market share. I think that there is some sense in this strategy. Unfortunately, it gets to be a bit of a habit after a while, and it is difficult to get out of even in those markets where penetration has been successful - Asia-Pacific for example. Margins there are lower than they could be - driven by a combination of habit, competitive pressures, and customer expectations, all of which are hard to break.

These days, it is my experience that Emerson is most usually the low ball competitor - perhaps they are following your "long-sighted Japanese approach…..to come in low, eliminate the competition, and then slowly raise prices"!

Yokogawa's basic business strategies are built on the following planks:

• Bullet-proof hardware with exceptional reliability (ask any of their customers!)
• Software that may not be cutting edge, but actually works when released, without bugs.
• A competitive price.

Extract from JimPinto.com eNews - 20 Jan. 2003

Yokogawa strategy: Good products + low price

About 70% of Yokogawa's total revenues are from Japan. Market segments are 50% industrial automation, 20% test & measurement (including a recent acquisition of Ando Electric), 10% information processing and 20% miscellaneous. With slumping demand in domestic Japanese markets, the company shows slim growth in foreign markets, though this seems to be generated through significant price reductions, contributing to losses (Y/E March 03). Yokogawa's market cap is $ 1.6b, about 60% of sales; its poor performance would not support its stock price in any other market than Japan.

Here are some objective Pinto business comments:

Yokogawa's products are good, especially the field instruments; but in a flat market there is little or no real product differentiation. So, Yokogawa's strategy seems to be to market penetration through low-price. In selected target geographies (including the US) they cut prices (often as much as 75-80% off list), and certainly not based on lower costs. Their aggressive pricing is far below the level of any US or European competitors, who simply cannot offer comparable discounts. For selected products, this makes operating profits woefully inadequate and ruins the market.

Recall that America was once the leading supplier of automotive, steel, radios, television sets, shoes etc. The reputedly 'long-sighted' Japanese approach then (and now) was (and is) to come in low, eliminate the competition and then slowly raise prices.

Historically, Japanese tactics have been helped by two factors:

1. The lower profit expectations of Japanese stock holders and banks, with tolerance for losses - even extended losses. The Japanese government supports these tactics as long-term business wisdom, to counteract (in their view) American business short-sightedness.
2. There is a price differential between products sold in Japan vs. the price outside Japan. For example, it seems clear that control and measurement products sold by Yokogawa in Japan have been priced as much as 2-3 time higher than those same products sold outside Japan. This price difference has been reduced somewhat because Japan itself is in an economic slump and the safety-net of high priced domestic sales has dwindled.

Yokogawa will continue to be a major automation player, though their strategy is flawed. They still suffer from the outdated and mistaken perception that good products and low pricing is all that is needed. In a fast-moving new-age environment, that may be a very bad mistake.

Yokogawa's home page

Monday, January 13, 2003

Has anyone actually worked or installed a Stardom system? Any good? Any comments would be welcome. It is supposed to be a DeltaV killer. I only heard that some Food Flavouring plant in Indonesia has installed it.

Going by the brochures it seems ready to take on most conventional projects...

Thursday, November 7, 2002

CS3000R3 has been presented at the European Users conference. It includes XP and can co-exist with CS3000R2 in the same system. During the conference Yokogawa made very clear they will continue with CS3000 as their DCS solution.

Stardom is more intended for applications where you are now forced to use PLC because of cost/small size or a too large/expensive DCS cabinet because of control complexity.

Thursday, November 7, 2002

Migrating CentumV to DeltaV:
CentumV I/O will still be available for several years. If you overhaul the controller power supplies and buy a spare processor, Centum V should serve you many more years to come. The stuff never fails!

If you really want/need to migrate, see your Yokogawa sales guy and ask for 'Turtle' for CentumV. (CPU and bus converter kit). Without changing the I/O (though the card files will have to be lowered a little) you can turn your CentumV into CS3000R3. Step-by-step.

Reuters item - 11 October 2002

Yokogawa to shut 15 plants in Japan

Japan's Yokogawa Electric Corp plans to step up its restructuring plan and shutter 15 of its 19 domestic plants by March 2004, relocating 1,000 workers, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

Yokogawa will focus production on the remaining 4 domestic plants and 4 other facilities in South Korea, China and Singapore. The company said last November it would cut 700 jobs, or 5 percent of its workforce, by March 2002 and close up to 9 domestic plants within two years in a bid to weather a persistent downturn in the info-tech sector.

The paper said the 1,000 staff will be relocated to other facilities in Japan, without employing a voluntary retirement program.Yokogawa plans to close the first 3 plants this month, as part of the restructuring aimed at halving production costs.

Monday, September 30, 2002

Looks like the latest release is a features/maintenance upgrade fromtheri website. XP support but R3.0 released last year was Windows 2000 - wonder what's going to happen to the users that went to Win 2000?, FDA 21 CFR 11 enhancements and wide area remote I/O (via ethernet, I think). All these are for CS3000 only - maybe they will "kill" CS1000 and sell Stardom in its place. From what I hear from Yokogawa sales people, the division that "owns" Stardom is different from the DCS (CS3000,Cs1000)people. That may be why they are 2 different products except maybe I/O - Stardom I/O looks like CS3000 remote I/O.

Sunday, September 29, 2002

just heard the news that yokogawa has released some new version of cs3000? what are they upto? they are sending confusing signals to the market - one side releasing stardom and other side releasing new version of cs3000

Thursday, September 26, 2002

What's the real issue with Yokogawa? It seems they are unsure of what they want to do. Introducing new systems every three years and leaving users in lurch on continous investments towards keeping the older generation systems working. Typical philosophy - enter a really low price and reap benefits thru'out life cycle on services, supports, etc.. Hope better sense will prevail and users stop looking at Yokogawa as a reliable Systems Supplier.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

To the End-User with a Centum V - either way you will be faced with a hefty migration costs. Centum V to CS3000 will involve major controller CPU hardware upgrades as well as manually intensive software conversion (Yokogawa's utlities provides only partial "automated" conversion - there is significant cleanup to do). Stardom may not be mature enough for replacing a Centum V and there does not appear to be a Centum V-Stardom migration path anyway apart from a complete teardown and replacement. If you are in this position, then one is better off looking at other products out there - Emerson's DeltaV comes to mind. Think it thru ...

Monday, September 23, 2002

As an end-user, I have a dilemma of migrating existing Yokogawa's Centum V System to current version - Centum CS 3000 or Stardom ? What is Yokogawa's position worldwide - is it Centum CS 3000 or Stardom ? We would like to know, since, in Asia Pacific local Yokogawa office is hesitating to quote Stardom to customers.

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

Fuji used to be dominant force in the Indian market when represented by IL. However its is no longer active in the market. They seem to be interested in huge project requirements (200 - 300 Nos.). However when it comes to small volume requirement Fuji is conspicious by it absence and the other comeptitors are are having a field day.

Same is the scenario with Honeywell, understand that they have closed their Temperature manufacturing facility in France. Long time user are left in a lurch.

We are also not getting proper response for spares & services for Fuji transmitters in Indian market. No of fly by night operators claim to represent Fuji but unable to provide proper technical support. This will have far reaching repurcussions on image and reputation of company.

On Saturday, September 07, 2002 - this was logged:

Responding to fuji transmitters business, it may be true since in india too they have changed hands more than once in last couple of years.

We also understood from a rep in Thailand who is handling Fuji Transmitters for more than a decade,that Fuji are going to EXIT this non-core business of their's which is going down continuously in volume.

On Thursday, September 05, 2002, this was logged:

We understand Fuji Electric is existing from their Pressure Transmitter business as their worldwide volume has dwindled to approx. 15000/ units in a year and we are all using many of their old transmitters in the plant. Any info on this??

On Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - in response to the weblog about the departure of Dale Langham, a knowledgeable Yokogawa observer wrote :

"This is the old Measurementation in Houston, an analytical systems integrator. Their sales must be abysmal now and I suspect that there are a number of their folks on the street. If this is the case and you hear of any of them please let me know. These are by and large good people as I recall.

Their next move will be a change in management, to bring in one of the Yoko who can execute the superior Japanese management style.

It would be nice to know their 2000, 2001 and expected 2002 sales. It would confirm or deny my supposition.

On Tuesday, September 03, 2002 a Yokogawa insider wrote:

"The GM Sales (Dale Langham) of the Yokogawa America, Analytical systems integration group, Measurementation (Cold Springs, TX) separated from YCA last week. John Williams, Measurementation president, will serve as acting Sales Mgr. Is this a downward spiral, or what?"

On Thursday, July 25, 2002, Walt Rovira of Teledyne Technologies [walter_rovira@teledyne.com] wrote:

As a former VP and GM for Yokogawa America (resigned 3/02) I read your article on Yokogawa with great interest.

I felt the comments from Chris Carnavos (former VP of Yokogawa Systems) were a bit outdated. Yokogawa HQ now has US as the #1 growth market and requires Yokogawa America to make profit (#1 priority is operating income).

In the past few years they have experienced flat to negative sales growth. Yokogawa America has learned how to run a profitable business in spite of lack of growth.

An ex-Yokogawa-USA employee (name witheld by request) wrote, on Thursday, June 13, 2002:

Like Mr. Carnavos, I too am an ex Yokogawa employee. But maybe a middle management point of view is worthwhile. I worked as a Product Specialist for a couple of years in the Yokogawa Field Instruments group.

YCA has many strategic management problems which both directly and indirectly affect their success within the US.

1. They do not seem to be able or are unwilling to learn how to market, sell and promote their products here. Selling through independent Reps is a "foreign" experience for them, (pun intended). Even after many years of utilizing this channel. Japanese management usually have little communication with those Reps, often giving confusing and unrealistic sales expectations. As was pointed out, gaining marketshare at any cost still continues to be a prevalent philosophy.
2. Receiving test, marketing, and technical product information from Japan is like "pulling teeth". Helping their US counterparts with customer technical service is not a priority. Also, unless your job title includes the word "manager", there is a snide, condescending attitude and tonality to much of the communiqué. When help is needed in the US, There is an "art" to requesting information from Japan which can improve your chances of actually getting any information back. It is a daily struggle for the personnel in the US.
3. Personnel management skills. While there are many excellent and competent managers in both their Newnan and Houston locations, like most companies there are several managers that are lacking in both business and personal interrelationship acumen. Those managers are allowed to practice their "personal agendas", going unchecked. Japanese upper management blindly supports them because they rarely take the time to really learn about their personal or professional skills. College degrees and past titles dictate their respect. Unfortunately, this negatively affects business decisions and the treatment of employees.
4. Contrary to what many Westerners believe, the famous Japanese "humility factor" that they are known for doesn't seem to apply to their business practices. In the two years while employed by YCA, not once did I hear "We were wrong" or "We are sorry" for any decision that was made which proved incorrect or was professionally or personally hurtful.

On Monday, June 03, 2002, an ex-Yokogawa sales manager wrote:

"Yokogawa Corp of America tidbit - they are seriously planning to the bulk of their systems project and engineering resource from Newnan GA to Houston (Stafford). There will probably be some attrition as the I know some of the project and engineering people will not want to move to Houston. They have got some folks running live projects commuting between Houston and Newnan. Not a vert satisfactory state of affairs for customers and Yokogawa people if you ask me."

A sales manager (name witheld) who has previously worked for Yokogawa, wrote on Monday, April 29, 2002:

"Glad to see you finally wrote a piece on the Japanese automation companies in general and my former employers in particular. I must say you got it pretty much right on.

"Yokogawa in NA has been pretty much thrashed because of the JYC fiasco and the fall out that is continuing albeit to a lesser degree. Examples are the continuing Rep turmoil in the Chicago area, and the identity crisis with the Systems business and its multiplicity of products and sales channels.

"A lot of the overseas Yokogawa entities - I have experience with the NA, UK, ME and Asian offices - suffer from the rotating door syndrome with regards to their management as you describe. The exception may be the European operation, HQ in The Netherlands that has a local (Hans Dik, ex-Foxboro) as their head for a good number of years (~10). There they have a solid local personnel infrastructure and rotate the 2nd management tier expats. In my opinion, Yokogawa Europe is relatively successful because of that. Anyway, my nickel's worth."

On April 26, 2002, this exchange took place :

Q : Yokogawa was doing IA business in the US in 1984. Where were Emerson Electric, Invensys, ABB... (Rosemount, Foxboro, Bailey) in the 1980's?

Jim Pinto:
For a long time, Yokogawa was the largest IA company in the world. Emerson, Invensys, ABB - all grew by acquisition. Yokogawa did not (could not, culturally) make acquisitions.

Q: Why does Jim Pinto think Yokogawa is a flash in the pan (short term plan) while US & European based companies are right on the mark?

JimPinto:
I never, ever suggested that Yokogawa was a short-term, flash-in-the-pan. They are indeed a long-term player.

Q: Why has Yokogawa survived (financially) if the global marketing plan was out of date?

Jim Pinto:
They have survived because Japanese financial expectations are low (compared with US goals ) - and the real financial data is well hidden (not disclosed). By US standards, the company is VERY BADLY managed, but continues to surive because of the Japanese financial sturcture and culture.

It is interesting that OMRON has overtaken Yokogawa in size and financial strength.

This is all my own opinion. I hope I have helped.

Ricardo Pessoa [ricardo@ibiseng.com]wrote about the similarities between the Japan and Germany approaches to business:

"German and Japanese cultures have much in common, specially regarding the view towards aliens and foreign cultures.

"Japanese countries cannot, as well as Germany, be clearly understood from a US-based paradigm. One has to understand how these cultures have evolved over time to avoid misconcepts and myths.

"I'd suggest a revisitation of one of the clearer books on Japanese culture written in the times when Japanese juggernauts assaulted the business world, initiating the TQM, TPM and other initiatives in manufacturing. It is "The Enigma of Japanese Power" by Karel van Wolferen."