History. So fun and engaging.
In my lifetime, I've observed the industrial transition from the Henry Ford Assembly Line to the Toyota Production System and now Apple's remarkable ability to produce very high volume intricate products at global scale.
Patrick Mcgee - author of the terrific Apple in China book returns to Apple in two parts: "roots of a tech revolution" and "how Asia fuelled its rise to the top".
A gorgeous graphic!
Mcgee begins:
"This is a story about how ideas travel — across oceans and factory floors, and sometimes through a single person changing jobs. It is a story about how America invented a manufacturing philosophy, exported it to Japan, forgot it, relearnt fragments of it through a handful of companies and then re-exported the whole synthesis to Asia. The story leads us to the present moment, with the US spending vast sums trying to bring it all back, southern India investing to be the next global tech hub and China fighting to hold on to its manufacturing dominance.
It is, above all, a story underscoring that what Apple started to build in Shenzhen, China a quarter century ago is not merely an assembly line. It is the endpoint of a multi-decade chain of civilisational knowledge transfer, a feat of enormous complexity that cannot be replicated with tax breaks in Karnataka or a ribbon cutting in Texas.
The whole chain begins with a question. In occupied Tokyo, a 33-year-old engineer named Homer Sarasohn stood before a group of Japanese executives and asked: why does any company exist?"
For me, the technical intrigue "lies in the subtle, multi-decade transmission of management philosophy—how abstract ideas about “total systems,” statistical control, and worker empowerment traveled from a 1940s Osaka hotel classroom to the precision engineering of a modern iPhone".
Practically, while selling small tractors years ago - thanks to my entrepreneurial parents - I observed a mechanic colleague remarking that a late 1970's Kubota tractor and its accessories just fit together and required no hammering.
Who could forget a physician family friend proudly demonstrating how smoothly and quietly his late 1970's Honda Accord's door closed.
Yet, we have so much to learn. I witnessed a recent water heater delivery and installation delayed with increased cost due to a big dent in the tank discovered only when the unharmed packaging was removed.
Deeper Dive:It's time to build: books, articles, links and immersive visits to interesting places.
Job to be Done: Thinking about Work and Place.
A Lesson Learned and a Lesson Forgotten - Homer Sarasohn by Robert Chapman Wood.
Homer Sarasohn and American Involvement in the Evolution of Quality Management in Japan, 1945–1950 by N. I. Fisher
Worth watching: Terafab summary by grok.
Explore Japan in amuz
