Engineers Rule: Honda and its culture of engineering | Hacker News Reader

Engineers Rule: Honda and its culture of engineering

forbes.com

49 pointstc37 comments

allowing smart people creative freedom seems to solve so many problems that it blows my mind its not more common.

as far as i can tell, thats the thesis behind google's 20% time. i think its even cooler that Honda encourages this behavior and that system is so intrinsic to their culture that they don't even use it as a major selling point to potential employees. just business as usual.

innovation seems to be so rarely rewarded in stiff corporate environments and thats a damn shame.

It just requires good engineers, and there is a distribution in the quality of engineers just like every other profession.

The "HP Way" used to be somewhat like this, didn't it?

"Engineers have built a contraption of water heater size that strips hydrogen out of natural gas while burning the carbon to provide heat for the home."

Ok, now that's just silly. Why not just burn the methane directly in the car and skip the multiple steps?

Hydrogen is a terrible choice as a fuel, it's very hard to store, and has a poor energy to volume ratio.

I should point out they did also create a methane car, and solar electrolysis, so I'm not really complaining about them.

it sounds like hyperbole, but I honestly believe there are two types of people in this world. engineers and everyone else. a smart country would put the engineers in charge and reap the windfall of profits.

A smart country?

It is better to think smaller here: put yourself (and possibly other engineers) in charge and reap the windfall of profits.

I am. Well, still working on that "windfall of profits" part. ;)

Where do the scientists fit in?

I think I agree with your sentiment, but the mindset can be dangerous.

Engineering - if viewed most generally - is simply a pragmatic way of looking at the world, with an eye for improvement. If you use this broad definition, I think there are people who are try to create actionable change, and others who simply are greedy or uninterested.

Its dangerous though to put yourself on a pedestal (I assume you are an engineer)... I have I heard the same comment said about entrepreneurs, and my stomach turns a little from hubris...

There is a sort of government like that, it's called technocracy, "scientific government". That is where bureacracy comes from, you know, nowadays it's a term of contempt but once, it was the pinnacle of scientific management and government. The EU is a good example of a technocracy, while there is an elected component, all the real power is in the hands of appointed officials. China is another technocracy. Judge for yourself how well that works.

if technocracy was the same as bureaucracy there wouldn't be separate names for it.

Bureaucracy is the mechanism. Technocracy is belief in government by the bureaucratic class.

I disagree, you can have a technocratic democracy, a technocratic oligarchy, technocratic monarchy etc. technocracy is just a form of meritocracy where the the definition of merit has been more strictly defined.

I think it fails to work when the metric by which technical expertise is defined is easily manipulated. Since power is involved everyone is going to constantly be looking for ways in.

It's not myself I'm putting on a pedestal, rather engineers in general. I think that a single engineer in charge can of course be disastrous. But a general policy of engineers as decision makers seems pretty win-win.

Replace "engineers" here with occupation x, and this statement will be true from the viewpoint of every x in the world.

I have been in companies where engineers with questionable managerial/leadership skills were elevated to top positions. The results weren't pretty.

Sounds interesting. Can you elaborate on those results? What sort of things went wrong?

Interestingly, the only country I can think of off the top of my head with an engineer "in charge" is Iran. I don't think Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a great example of how a country should be run.

Huh. In "The World is Flat", Friedman laments the fact that leaders in the US are usually lawyers, whereas in Europe and Asia, they often have engineering and science backgrounds. I don't have a copy on hand... and I don't think he gets into any detail about specific leaders and countries.

There are always counter examples anyway. Much of it comes down to what people think of as "general education" - ie., when people say "you can do anything with a degree in X".

In the US, people tend to say this about humanities followed by law. So, you can do anything after studying Emily Dickenson's poetry followed by three years of learning about non-compete agreements, determining jurisdiction, learning about court procedures, and determining who owns intellectual property. Whereas in Asia, they'd probably figure you can do anything after studying ordinary differential equations and optimization science.

I actually think that the more general educational approach of the US system combined with a substantial background in science and engineering would be an incredible background for a leader, but in general, we get lawyers who have not studied science.

Which isn't necessarily a problem... wo much of it comes down to the individual anyway...

Angela Merkel, the chancellor in Germany is a physicist.

More of a quantum chemist, though I realize this is a distinction most people who aren't theoretical solid-state physicists are unlikely to care about.

Margaret Thatcher also had a chemistry background (though only a Bachelors, unlike Merkel's PhD).

It's funny you should mention it...but Iran is one of the few countries in the world right now that seems to have a clear picture of exactly how international politics works. Iran recognizes that what we call sovereignty in this day and age is a joke. True sovereignty (the ability to actually govern your own affairs) is conferred by nuclear power. I'm sure you don't think Russia is a good example of how a country should be run either, but no one is talking about invading Russia... Pakistan is an interesting case. It looks as though the U.S. saw the political upheaval there as an opportunity to take away their sovereignty by going in and taking their nukes. Never really saw a follow up story on that.

Don't forget the Chinese premiers for the past 20 years or so.

> a smart country would put the engineers in charge

This approach has a horrible track record. Failed "five year plans" all 'round.

I think engineers have a pretty bad track record as policy makers and leaders. Engineers see controllable processes and solvable problems. In a complex system like an economy or society these visions are usually mirages.

Cue obligatory reference to the famous Simpsons episode where mensa takes control of Springfield:

Comic Book Guy: Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you this will mean much less breeding, for me, much much more.

Most five year plans had little to do with real engineering and where focused on "helping X" at the cost of Y.

I think the group is larger than just engineers. There are technical people and non-technical people. I would say an economist is a lot closer to an engineer than a lawyer.

Both are necessary, but right now it seems that the elected officials are non-technical. A balance would be a lot better.

One should keep in mind that engineers also produce some of the world's most dramatic failures.

Yes, and engineers learn from those mistakes, rather than repeating them every 10 years.

You would think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_disasters

and how many of those were due to circumstance beyond the engineers control?

my thoughts exactly.

i'm looking through... boat collision, boat collision, construction failure, no inspection, fire, bombs, etc. etc.

i see tacoma narrows in 1940: "Since that time all new bridges have been modeled in wind tunnels."

edit: here, have some engineering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_bridge

i wanna work at honda :(

Honda have a series of TV ads (here in the UK anyway) that don't seem to be about any one particular product. There's a chap with a moustache who sings to dream, an impossible dream (don't know the actual name of the song) while operating various Honda technologies, motorbikes to hot air balloons. They seem to be investing considerably in getting the message out that they are a company where good people can do great stuff, rather than just selling things.

There is a short SciFi story from Asimov on the difficulties to get young, brilliant people to work for large engineering companies. The wind up exploiting a mishap with a robot to make the whole business sound dangerous and thus challenging, attractive.

Honda, though, seems to be building trademark.

This is my favorite Honda ad of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2VCfOC69jc

Lots of neat innovative processes/thinking coming out of Japanese carmakers, I wonder how GM, etc. went down the unproductivity path...

This ignores the possibility that GM and Ford management have been perfectly rational in opting not to make major capital investments in their auto lines. The finance guys made A LOT of money at GM with GMAC and several big non-auto deals. It's perhaps a bit naive to spin this tale where GM would be doing very well if only they had been obsessive about engineering.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122669746125629365.html

GM and Ford's apparent neglect of their US car lines makes perfect sense if you come to the conclusion that there's massive global overcapacity in car manufacturing and the unionized US workforce could never compete anyway. It's early yet to say Honda will even be a winner in the next 10 years. Every two bit country in the world is subsidizing a domestic car industry. My wild guess is it will be close to impossible to make decent profits and smart management would exit the business.

DIGITAL was another company known for technical prowess and a focus on engineering. They got eaten for lunch by the wheeler-dealers.

Honda makes money building cars in the US. Industry's with large upfront capital outlays tend to have a fairly constant and positive ROI for the most efficient participants. Because people don't spend a billion+ to enter the market if the odds of a positive ROI are poor.

I completely agree with you, the financial guys make a lot of money. And because of that, the core business of GM should be financial and no automotive. So, let's make them sell the automotive part and buy Japanese, German and Korean cars. They know how to make cars.

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