Work Life & Job Hunting · Company Research Lab
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Which term refers to goods bought by other companies in order to make products?
What a company buys in order to produce is called producer goods, and what an individual buys for final use is called consumer goods. Makers of parts and materials mainly sell producer goods and are BtoB, while makers of food and cosmetics mainly sell consumer goods and are BtoC.
What is a company that delivers parts directly to a finished-goods maker called?
A supplier delivering directly to the finished-goods maker is Tier 1, the so-called first-tier supplier; one delivering to Tier 1 is Tier 2, and the next one out is Tier 3. The further down the tiers, the narrower the range handled and the more specialised the processing.
Which form of business does the term OEM refer to?
OEM means producing goods under another company's brand. Where the design work is taken on as well, the term used is ODM. It is a form of business in which the company holding the brand and the company actually making the product are different.
Which abbreviation refers to contract manufacturing services for electronic equipment?
EMS refers to a business that takes on the whole manufacturing process for electronic equipment, from procuring parts through assembly to inspection. OEM and ODM are names for forms of business dealing, and SCM is an approach to managing the flow of supply, so they mean different things.
What is worth checking if a parts maker wants to keep swings in its own sales small?
A parts maker's sales depend on the production plans of finished-goods makers. If sales are concentrated on 1 customer, a production cut at that customer feeds straight through to results. Check how many customers the sales are spread across, in the information by major customer and the state of related companies in the annual securities report. The location, the founder's birthplace and the origin of the company name have nothing to do with swings in sales.
What is the name for keeping design, parts making and assembly inside one's own corporate group?
Keeping the processes inside one's own group is vertical integration, while splitting them among companies that are each good at one stage is horizontal specialisation. Horizontal specialisation has advanced in electronics and semiconductors, while automobiles have long kept something close to vertical integration.
Which field is the main business of Denso Corporation (株式会社デンソー)?
In the company outline on its official website Denso lists an automotive (in-vehicle) business and a non-automotive business, with the automotive side at the centre. The core is a producer-goods business supplying carmakers with products for engine control, thermal management, electrification and the like.
What name did Kyocera Corporation (京セラ株式会社) go by when it was founded in 1959?
Kyocera was founded in 1959 in Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto, as Kyoto Ceramic Co., Ltd. The founder was Kazuo Inamori, and the first product was an insulating part used in cathode-ray tube televisions.
What word describes the long-standing trading relationship between carmakers and parts makers in the Japanese automobile industry?
These long-term trading relationships have been called keiretsu (系列). In recent years carmakers commonly buy from outside the keiretsu as well, and parts makers commonly sell to several carmakers. A holding company describes a capital structure, and a franchise a way of rolling out shops.
Which statement about who manufacturers sell to does not hold?
A finished-goods maker buys many of its parts from outside companies and does not make everything itself. Where the line falls between what is made in-house and what is bought in differs from company to company.
In which year was Toyota Motor Corporation (トヨタ自動車株式会社) established?
The company outline on the official website gives the founding date as August 28, 1937. The main business is stated as the production and sale of automobiles.
In which year was Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (本田技研工業株式会社) established?
It was established on September 24, 1948 in Itaya-cho, Hamamatsu. Its forerunner, the Honda Technical Research Institute, had appeared in 1946, and the founder was Soichiro Honda. Takeo Fujisawa, who later supported the management side, joined in August of the following year, 1949.
Which product did Honda Motor take as the starting point of its business?
It began with fitting generator engines from former army radios to bicycles as auxiliary power. An original engine was developed after that, and in 1949 the company put its own motorcycle on sale.
What was the name of SUBARU Corporation (株式会社SUBARU) before the change of name in April 2017?
On April 1, 2017 the name changed from Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. to SUBARU Corporation. It is a case of laying the brand name over the company name; the business itself was not swapped out.
Which business does SUBARU Corporation run alongside automobiles?
SUBARU treats automobiles and aerospace as its two pillars. The official news release announcing the change of name presented a new car and a helicopter side by side.
In which year was Denso Corporation established?
The company outline on the official website gives the date of establishment as December 16, 1949 (1949年12月16日). It started out as a company specialising in automotive parts.
What was the first product Hitachi, Ltd. (株式会社日立製作所) built in-house at its founding?
Hitachi's history began in 1910 in a small repair shop at a mine, and its first product was a 5-horsepower induction motor. In an age that relied on foreign technology, making an electric machine domestically was the starting point.
Who began Hitachi's history in 1910 from a repair shop at a mine?
The founder was Namihei Odaira. He set out to manufacture electric machinery domestically, and made a 5-horsepower induction motor his first product.
Who are the main customers of a company that makes electronic components such as capacitors and inductors?
Electronic components are producer goods that do their work inside equipment, so the customers are the set makers that assemble electronic equipment. Because this is not a business that sells directly to consumers, the names are often ones you never see in a shop.
Which part is not fitted to an electric vehicle?
An electric vehicle runs on a motor, so it has no tank for carrying fuel and no exhaust system. As electrification advances, parts around the engine decrease while electrical parts such as batteries, motors and inverters increase, so the product mix of parts makers is swapped around.
In which year was Toray Industries, Inc. (東レ株式会社) founded?
It was founded in 1926 and started out producing rayon yarn. Today it works in a wide range of fields including fibres, films, resins, chemicals, electronic and information materials, carbon fibre composite materials, water treatment, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
What name did AGC Inc. (AGC株式会社) go by when it was founded in 1907?
It was founded in 1907 as Asahi Glass Co., Ltd. Starting from sheet glass, it now has automotive glass, glass substrates for displays, chemicals, ceramics and more.
When did Asahi Glass Co., Ltd. change its name to AGC Inc.?
The name changed from Asahi Glass Co., Ltd. to AGC Inc. with effect from July 1, 2018. The change matched the spread of the business into materials other than glass.
In which year did the umami seasoning of Ajinomoto Co., Inc. (味の素株式会社) go on general sale?
In 1907 Kikunae Ikeda began research into extracting umami from kelp, Saburosuke Suzuki turned it into a business, and general sale in bottles began in May 1909. The company took the name Ajinomoto Co., Inc. in February 1946.
Which company, established in 1917, was the forerunner of Kikkoman Corporation (キッコーマン株式会社)?
Noda Shoyu Co., Ltd. was established in 1917. As a trademark, Kikkoman was unified for the Tokyo market in 1927 and nationwide in 1940.
Who started Nagase Shoten in 1887, the beginning of Kao?
It began when the first Tomiro Nagase founded Nagase Shoten, a dealer in Western sundries, in 1887. A directly owned factory was completed in 1902 and soap production began in earnest.
In which year was the name changed from Kao Soap Co., Ltd. to Kao Corporation?
The name changed from Kao Soap Co., Ltd. to Kao Corporation in 1985. It is a case of dropping the product from the company name as the business spread into fields beyond soap.
Which two companies merged in 2005 to become Astellas Pharma Inc. (アステラス製薬株式会社)?
Astellas Pharma Inc. came into being in April 2005 through the merger of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical and Fujisawa Pharmaceutical. Yamanouchi was established in 1923 and Fujisawa in 1894, and the fields they were strong in differed.
Which company began with casting in 1890 and later spread into cast iron pipe for waterworks and agricultural machinery?
The starting point was Gonshiro Kubota beginning in 1890 to cast parts for weighing instruments and everyday goods; the business spread to cast iron pipe for waterworks in 1893 and to making and selling cultivators in 1947. A single technique, casting, branched out into waterworks and agriculture.
What are medicines made with the same active ingredient after the patent on the original drug has expired called?
Kōhatsu iyakuhin (後発医薬品) is also called a generic drug. Companies that create new original drugs and companies that work on generics differ both in the burden of development and in how they sell, so it is worth keeping them apart when deciding where to apply.
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