By Makato Kikuchi (translated in English by Simul International),
(The Simul Press, Inc., Tokyo, Japan) 1983.
"...You Japanese aren’t fair, Kikuchi! You take information from other
countries whenever it suits you, but once your own work gets up there
you refuse to let out any of your own work".
(Dr.C.N.Berglund, Bell Northern Research of Canada to
Dr.M. Kikuchi in 1977, p.145).
"The Japanese and Germans are doing extremely well these days in
electronics. Do you know what these two countries have in common?
Number one, they never, never participate in great human
challenges
- like the space program, for instance. They invest nothing in
such
endeavours. And number two, neither of them think of
spending
money on defense ….”.
(Dr.J.H.Hollomon, Director of Centre for Policy Alternatives at MIT
at a International Electron Device Meeting in Washington, p.148).
The Ascent of Japan
In the mid seventies and early eighties, the world saw Japan asserting its superiority in modern technology vis-a-vis USA and Europe. The Americans were bitter. The champions of free market had started using trade-barriers to protect themselves from Japanese technological invasion. It is in this environment that Dr.Makato Kikuchi, Director of Sony Research Centre since 1974 and a well-known solid-state scientist since mid 50’s, wrote this book. The book is about Japan, about USA and a bit about the evolution of Electronics. In a story told as a series of encounters and incidents in which he participated, the author tries to explain the native strengths of Japan, the qualities of the American society which were appreciated by Japanese scientists and in his own way tries to explain why Japanese industry has reached the top.
This is a period when the morale of the sociologists and scientists in USA
and Europe is low. Dr.E.Loefner, Hewlett-Packard Co. put it in simple terms
in 1979 in a conversation with the author, "The age of American
leadership in technology is over. Next it’s Japan’s turn..." (p.10). The
Americans were floundering. The Vice-president of Zenith Radio Corp., a big
American television manufacturer asked in 1974, "Kikuchi, is it really
necessary for a company making television like we do to have a research
department? Be honest with me," (p.132). The tables were turned around.
Dr.J.G.Linvill, head of Stanford University, Electrical Engineering
Department, USA, in a visit to Dr.Kikuchi’s Laboratory in Japan in 1980
asked, "If you could, would you tell me as much as you are able about the
research you are doing at this lab now? "I thought there might be something
we could try, too. I thought at least we could see if it looked
possible or not". To this the author said to himself, "What! Have you
started doing what we Japanese were doing twenty years ago?"
(p.13).
I. Beginnings
Things were not always like this. Sometime back America was the confident
and condescending teacher of Japan. The Americans “made a point of praising
me (a Japanese scientist) .... as they still considered the Japanese to be
those people who ‘did very well, all things considered’, which is to say, it
could hardly be helped if they were not quite up to American standards ..."
(p.75). They were generous to "the little children from a country with a
different culture, defeated in war, had studied hard and made good
grades...” (p.76). When presented with new findings by Japanese, they
exhibited easy confidence "We haven't experimented in this area, yet"... or
"You have fine data, haven't you?" (p.76). They sometimes flaunted their
superiority. "You remember old X- at Y company? He went over to Japan on
military service and got himself a Japanese wife … And get this, no sooner
does he bring the new missus back with him than that the Japanese gal starts
learning golf". And a dozen or so Americans laughed boisterously (p.78).
They were earlier willing to invite Japanese researchers on exchange and
help them. But not any longer Dr.J.Morton, Vice-president of the Bell Labs
remarked, that this would be the last time an exchange student will be
accepted at Bell Labs because, “Well, this exchange student will be walking
around the labs. He is certain to see our latest research. We can't watch
over him all the time and tell him not to go into such and such a place.
With Japan the way it is today, I am sure you could start something with any
new information he got. What scares us is your speed once you have set a
target for yourselves. …….You don't try to find your own targets. Instead
you get information from us and in the end get results faster than we can
ourselves" (p.89).
II. Starting from Scratch
After the war, the author joined the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry’s Electrotechnical Laboratory. He states, "It is important that I
put down some of my.memories of this time. In 1948 our buildings, our
experimental equipment, indeed everything we had was small and rundown. …...
how hard Japan had to work to pick up itself up from the chaos at the end of
the war” (p.21). “Living conditions in 1948 hardly let us immerse ourselves
in our research … Yet, even so, our lab was full of bright hopes and
youthful vigor. I have no way of expressing it today except to say that the
war was over, and we were all in on the beginning of another great movement
in history, the dawning of a new age for Japan" (p.22).
Kikuchi and others in Japan took upon themselves to learn from the research
findings of the USA. They would visit and work under U:S: researchers. They
were ready to toil, "I would check the (US) publication out of the library,
roll seven or eight sheets of carbon paper into my ancient typewriter, and
bang out my own copies... I would distribute them to my superiors and
friends, and we would all study them together" (p.26). "We still had no
scientific literature on hand. We had no materials. There were literally
nothing to work with. But we set about our research with pounding hearts ….
But even so we were burning inside".
The Japanese industry started with imitations. They would initially make
cheap products which were a copy of the imported ones. In 1950s, "Made in
Japan" was a synonym for a cheap product, i.e. a product of very limited
life and use. The Japanese were disgusted with themselves for making such
cheap products. But they realised that “imitation might be a first
crucial step in the human learning process.” And after all their imitations
were not limited to ‘simple products.
They soon began imitating electronics - transistors which require material
with purity of 99.99999999 percent. This requires mastering "the preparation
and use of containers and gas purification methods that can handle such
tolerances, and obtain equal precision from machinery. It is absolutely
essential that temperatures be kept within.0.2 degrees of target, and this
at temperatures of upto 1000 °C. In short, the ability to imitate
transistors is a comprehensive test of the capabilities needed to run a
modern electronic industry’’. (p.182)
The Road from Imitation
What made them climb up from simple imitation to the sophisticated
imitation? In the course of the book Kikuchi points to several Japanese
characteristics which he thinks may have played an important role.
The first such factor was the willingness or keenness of Japan to external
stimuli. “We are easily touched off by outside factors. ... People eyed the
new machines with avid curiosity, and were greatly impressed by them”
(p.191). So much so that in 50's, "Imported" became the benchmark for a new
set of values (p.99). But there was a difference. The author states, “For
many years, Japan has incorporated foreign cultures in many forms. Yet it
has never absorbed these imports unchanged, always altering them to suit the
Japanese mentality and the special characteristics of Japanese society. It
has in short, polished and refined foreign ideas before assimilating them”
(p VII). This is true of religion, of food and of technology, “The point is
that any developmental process in Japan, even the scientific or
technological, is governed by distinctive Japanese characteristics based on
the nation’s culture and climate.”
The next important factor is a strong will, enthusiasm and vitality of the
Japanese society coupled with a strong sense of patriotism. According to the
author, "The driving force behind the growth of Japanese industry has been
human motivation and the eagerness of industry itself. Whether or not a
country can pull together and wield its collective strength, depends more
upon the initiative and fire of the people themselves than on the
government.” (p.6). They seem to possess “bottomless reservoir of vitality”
and pent-up energy. This "driving force may sometime appear in unsettled,
even rambunctious forms". They may be thought as “restless fidgeters".
Dr.D.Turnbull of Harvard University once summed up the strongest impression
of Japanese as follows - "At airport terminals there is a boarding ramp for
getting on the airliner from the waiting room. If you see someone trying to
squeeze past people in that boarding ramp to be first on the plane, you can
pretty much assume he is Japanese" (p.169).
According to the author “What I want to say is that Japanese revitalisation
after the war was not something that happened because it was ordained and
guided from on high. It was something that came about naturally as a result
of most Japanese being filled with a will to achieve it and of their working
tirelessly to that end. It was this human drive and energy that was the true
source of Japan’s recovery" (p.170).
Combined with the will is a patriotic dream. The mayor of Tokyo after the
destruction of the city in 1923 earthquake said to the people of the city,"
We are not going to rebuild the past. We are going to build the future"
(p.29). It is this dream that finds expression time and again. Dr.Kikuchi
recounts his conversation with the American scientist Dr.Schokley, the
father of transistor, in Boston in 1960, "Right now I feel a uniquely
American kind of freshness in the scientific research going on in United
States. Someday after I return to Japan, I would like to create this same
kind of atmosphere in my own research group. That is my dream" (p.51). To
this Dr.Schokley said with a searching expression, "I wonder when you will
wake up?". This dream and confidence soon became a shared dream of Japanese
scientists, "What it gave me was the gut feeling that, put simply, we could
do pretty well for ourselves. It was a feeling that gradually came to be the
shared property of all Japanese scientists who had followed along in the
shadow of the United States". (p.54).
A third characteristics of Japan brought out by the author is the
collective spirit of its people, "I think that the most distinctive thing
about U.S. and European society is the strength of the individual. Within
society, the strong awareness of self-identity. In Japan there is a powerful
orientation toward working together on the same job, but in the West people
try to be different from each other”. (p.12). "Individual members of
Japanese society have a powerful influence on one another. People are in
close proximity, not only physically, but also psychologically. Thus, a
disturbance in one corner of the society immediately sets off sympathetic
vibrations. .... This was how I chose to express the characteristics of a
homogeneous society readily open to consensus formation." (emphasis ours.
p.154).
Dr.Kikuchi mentions several other factors which could have helped Japan
stand up. He talks about the sense of security that Japan has due to it
being surrounded on all sides by water. He talks about the flexibility of
Japanese society, perhaps best expressed in Dr.Schokley's words- "Throughout
your history you have always gotten around society’s norms, skillfully
gotten around them, as society itself has progressed and changed. Change the
norms to fit the conditions. This is a magnificent achievement. Take even
something like birth control. You can make it a crime in one era, acquiesce
to it in another and finally, for all practical purposes, make it completely
acceptable. Your wisdom for living we cannot copy" (p.199).
Dr.Kikuchi gives an example of the Japanese worker's identification with
his/her work - "In American factories, the minute quitting time rolled
around the workers. would switch off the electricity and head for home. The
temperature in the furnace plunged and: the sapphires, of course, fractured.
Things are different in Japan. The workers figure that since they have this
batch in the furnace, they might as well finish it right. However, “doing it
right” in U.S.A. is considered to be the management's responsibility”.
But perhaps more than this, Dr.Kikuchi "places the source of Japan’s
strength in the broad canvas of education from the Meiji period on. ... an
education not forced by the government, but rather education actively sought
out by people themselves." (p.102). Not that this education does not have
problems. "The fundamental pattern, not only in elementary and middle
school, but even in higher grades, is for pupils to troop into the classroom
and frantically copy down the lecture in their notebooks. Students in
Japanese society do not have time to make knowledge of their own. If they
try, they will invariably get left behind ....” (p.205). "But even then
there may be no other society in which so many people have such a strong and
homogenous educational background.” (p.102).
Government and Industry
One of the often repeated illusions in the West about Japanese success is
that in Japan the government directs and plays the crucial role in the
development of technology. As Dr.J.Wasserman, Vice-president of Arthur
D.Little of USA put it with heavy sarcasm in 1974, "In Japan, government and
business are practically partners. Here in America, they are enemies"
(p.142).
Dr.Kiktichi ackowledges the co-operation between the government and
industry in Japan. For instance he writes, "It was the Ministry of
International Trade and Industry that encouraged the hunters and lent them a
helping hand. The state helped prop up the concentrated drive to develop
VLSI technology. It encouraged companies band together, and gave out tens of
millions of yen worth of output ... (p.141). But he goes on to say, "I think
you are being a little high-handed in deciding how Japan works. The Ministry
of International Trade and Industry, at least as far as my experience with
it goes, has never promoted its goals by tying a leash around the neck of
Japanese industry and dragging it along behind. An example - A child tries
to walk by herself. You walk along beside her, giving advice and
encouragement where needed. MITI has done that, but it has never made all
kinds of plans in advance and pushed everyone along whether they liked it or
not.” (p.6).
Achieving Consensus
"The leadership elite of the United States and Europe confidently believe
that by laying out guiding philosophies and goals backed up by solid numbers
they can generate tremendous momentum towards achieving a given objective.
In Japan, however, it was a different approach…. In Japan you plop down a
mikoshi festival float and shout, “Hey everybody, it is a party!” Let us
carry this thing! You shout that, and before you know it the mikoshi is up
and away. (p.144).
More so, it is the consensus of the people that plays an integral part in
government policy deliberations. As Dr. Kikuchi remarks, "we don’t behave in
line with some fixed philosophy as you suggest, far from it. We do exactly
the opposite. We respond quickly to changing situations and when things
don’t work out well, we give up immediately …. Japanese government
officials incorporate the view of important opinion leaders in drawing up
their plan and always take pains to implement policy in keeping with
changing conditions” (p.151).
This is not to suggest that bureaucracy in Japan is very different. Time
and again in the book, Dr. Kikuchi gives the glimpses of Japanese
bureaucracy, which in some sense appears no different from the Indian one.
When he was working as a scientist in.the government lab MITI, he relates an
incident where he requested the purchase department to purchase a saw and
gave the specification sheet. The sheet examiner pointed out,
''This.will never do, Look here, you have not put down how many teeth
the saw should have," (p.33). Dr. Kikuchi cites another example, when
recognising that Bell Labs stood head and shoulders above U.S. universities
in its vigorous research work, an attempt was made to send a staff member to
Bell Labs. "The Ministry of International Trade and Industry refused its
permission. The ministry said Japanese government employees should not study
at corporate research facilities." (p.88).
III. Learning from the United States
Dr.Kikuchi spent quite some time in his early years in the United States.
Not only does he acknowledges that he learned immensely from United States,
but also some aspects of American life attracted him (and presumably other
Japanese scientists). He relates incidents indicating the sense of
punctuality that the Americans had. Even Nobel prize winners like Dr.Van
Hippel and Dr.J.C.Slater would always be present in the seminar hall at MIT,
a little before the seminar was supposed to start. He contrasts this to the
early Japanese attitude when seniors always come late. Today, Japanese are
more punctual than probably anyone else. Dr.Kikuchi was impressed when he
came to know how important were the matters that secretaries handled in the
United States. In Japan they were little more than “errand girls". Today the
situation has changed. The secretaries in Japan today handle the most
complex tasks. Dr.Kikuchi was impressed with the American society where "in
the contractual world of work there was strictest separation between
superior and inferior, but as returning to their private selves people
quickly asserted their fundamental equality” (p.47).
Similarly he was quite taken aback when on looking for an old acquaintance
at RCA lab in Princeston, he was told, "He left. He was not quite up to the
work we do here. Here at RCA we think somebody is not up to par, we talk it
over with him man-to-man. We think of some other thing he might be able to
handle and reassign him. Sometime we try to persuade him to leave RCA and
switch to some completely different field." (p.63). Dr.Kikuchi states that
"in Japan there is nothing more disgraceful than for a researcher not to be
able to continue his studies”. (p.62). In Japan there is a feeling that once
a person becomes famous everyone must respect him and give him the seat of
honour. I found very little of that in the United States. (p.65).
Dr. Kikuchi is impressed with the care taken in United States to make
everyone functional. He recalls having a small red booklet given to every
scientist at MIT, which was "a source of helpful information rather than a
book of rules. It was presented, it stated, in the spirit that characterised
the founding of the Research Laboratory of Electronics - as much freedom as
possible from administrative restrictions." (p.66). Dr.Kikuchi found the
book very helpful as it was a list of straight forward, practical tips for
research workers. He again contrasts it with the situation then prevailing
in Japan.
Another notable feature that Dr.Kikuchi notices is the role technicians
play in American and Japanese society. "Technicians are people whose job is
to provide technical support to researchers. In Japanese laboratories, all
technicians dream of becoming full-fledged researchers in their own right.
They work increasingly to that end, even if it means going to night school
after working hours. An ironical result is that the profession of technician
has never quite gained respectability. Few people are willing to keep it for
long. At MIT and GE labs, however, I found any number of fairly elderly and
often very expert technicians. When evening came they would quickly shed
their lab jackets and dash for home.” (p.63). They did not want to do any
high-faulting research. They just helped with their trained fingers. And yet
it is in the United States that technicians were able to take patents on
processes.
IV
A significant portion of the book is about the nature of "Modern
Technology" and “Research and Development". The author is not very sure if
what is happening is all good. But he regards many of these questions as
idle thinking. He says, most of the interest was focused on the
philosophical question of whether computers would turn people into slaves of
machines. When there is no real industry to work with, thinkers lose
themselves in these kind of abstractions" (p.7). Dr.Kikuchi brings out that
early pioneers of a technology (in this case electronics) have to pay some
kind of a tax. They have to invest a lot of money and effort without being
sure of the result. But in the initial period there are plenty of
breakthroughs and excitement. As technology matures, new topics begins to
disappear. All the research become merely an extension of work that was
already underway. The work may be fine but the concepts are not new.
The Japanese ‘Model’
But with this maturity comes stability. The technology comes to distinguish
its composition and the basic perceptions about it. It is not possible to
leap on to something new. “When a technology is immature; it can take off in
any direction and evolve into any form imaginable." (p.127). The author
cites the case of amorphous semiconductor which was announced in 1968 as
material with which switches, computer memories and even optical memories
could be made. The discovery seemed a significant field for further research
and development. But all this not-withstanding, those working in
semiconductor gave amorphous silicon a frigid reception. This was simply
because silicon crystals had reached such a high level of maturity. The
technology had hardened into present forms. However, there is another side
of the coin. "The main benefit of mature technology is its impact on every
corner of daily lives.” (p.126).
There are many other aspects of technology that Dr.Kikuchi describes. He
describes the problem of a nation growing up and becoming stronger. Today
the situation is such that almost anything Japan does may look as a model to
the outside World. But the nation has struggled to stand up. There are many
many aspects of early Japanese society with which people in India and third
world countries can identify. We may feel that if Japan, starting from such
a situation, could change so much, there is hope for all of us. Probably the
book intends to convey this feeling but not without a warning. After one of
his talks in Brazil about Japan‘s early days a person from the audience came
to talk to the author, "I felt reassured today", he said “If Japan could do
that sort of thing and still become a splendid industrial nation, then
someday Brazil should be able to reach Japan’s level, too". Kikuchi
retorted, "No good, no good. You cannot get any real answers from that kind
of simple extrapolation. Things would not happen just like that. It requires
national will and urge to achieve".
Dr.Ashok Jhunjhunwala
Madras
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