Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

ourney to the Soure • ~ C\J ~ IlJ ..0 S IlJ ;;.- o - Z - - "N 0 one can promise that t oday is tomorrow" is a. ·J apanese saying quoted to us by one o f our Honda Motor guides, Yet here we -wer e, at a facility where 750 pe ople are employed expressly to make tomorrow happen. A separa te company within th e Honda co nglom- 28 erate , Honda R&D Comp an y Lt d ., is charged with su pp lyi ng blue prin ts t o Honda Motor Co ., the ir "inseparable partner. " That is their end product. As su ch, the motorcycle research and developmen t facility at Asak a is the fountainhead , the u ltimate source , o f the know-how behind all of Honda's two-wheeled products. \ At first it seems in conceivable th at all the en gineering dr awings to support Honda's multi-plant , multi-produ ct effort co m e from one rel atively sm all "bull pen " here, where abo u t a hundred draftsmen, engineers and supervisors bend ov er th eir de sks in a shi rt-s leeve at mosp here . It 's very likely, up on reflecti o n , th at each Ho nda fact ory has its o wn in-house e ngineering /d ra fti ng staff to develo p th e ir own requi red engineering paperwork fro m t he Ho n da R&D or iginals. Even so , it all starts to co me to geth er here, in o ne room at Asaka. • If t hat were all th at tak es place at Asaka, this would be a very sh ort sto ry . But the drafting ro om here is very mu ch akin to th e lay out room at Cycle News - the pl ace wh er e th e "end product " is put on p aper to go out th e doo r. It 's wh at goes on in all th e othe r bu ildings o f the Asaka com p lex t hat creates th e knowledge th at eventu all y winds up on paper - that's wh at reall y absorbs the buc ks and th e man-hours. The wa y Honda R&D is funded, that effort has go t to p ayo ff . It 's simple - Honda R & D receives 2.5 p ercent of Honda Mot or's gross re ce ipt s. No tic kee, no washee ; Ho nda R&D 's knowledge has t o go in to so meth ing th at sells or else it's layo ff t im e. 1\lr. Chij iiwa, the manager here, told us how it works . Ther e arc three stages to ea ch de velopmental ide a o r proj ect that surfaces at Asaka. There is an R" stage - p re-deve lop me n tal resear ch. Man agemen t ex pe rience indi cat es t hat the y can expect "o ne pe rcent success supported by 99 percen t fai lure " a t this stage. T hose developmen ts wh ich d o no t sho w co mme rcial promise are filed on th e " so med ay " shelf. Asak a's attic, if o ne co uld in spect it, would make an in terest ing st u dy in its elf. Next is the "D" stage . By the t ime a proj ect ha s reached this point - se lec t ed fo r co mmercial development - no fa ilure is t olerated. Period . It 's sup pose d to have been through scree ni ng alrea dy. Fina lly, t here 's the " P" stage prod uc tion on prototy pe t o oling - the fin al proof that what has been d esigned can be built. H Each project is evalu ated at each of the three stages by th e Chi ef Eng ineer, Mr . Kume, "For Project Man ager thi s is n o t a m ost p leasan t thing," we are told. Mr. Kume himself has briefed us , and will be with us mu ch o f the whirlwind tour . UW e wa n t y o u to understand the kind of enginee r ac tua lly working at Honda .. . " he has told us . "There ar e a few things which can no t be sh own to you - but all th ose things were hidden last week ." Asid e fr om the St yling Build ing, which is t otall y off limi ts, we are free to roam while the rain pours d own o utsi de . If th e " good stuff" was hidden , wha t wer e th e folks a t Asa ka doing today? Analyzing no ise, for .on e th in g. First thing I saw was a group of te chnicians with a fr equ en cy generat or and a lot o f sta t e-o f-th e-art ele ctronic gear playing a noise tape gen era t ed by o ne o f Honda' s twins on te st. The y were picking eac h of so u nd each " co m p on en t " part icu lar frequen cy ban d and running bo th osc illos co p e p ix an d st rip charts o f it as engine speed var ied. T his is ju st on e o f th e w ays th at they zero in on areas where n oise reduction will pay o ff. It may be so m et hin g so sm all as

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