Early Launch Customers?
In my experience of teaching Japanese Engineers in the USA many years ago, and then working with them to design large vector/scalar computer systems, I was very, very impressed by their commitment to provide the best possible product to their customers. The Japanese culture of what constitutes acceptable design and production risk was then infinitely more refined than anything contemplated by the U.S manufacturers.
Issues of this type, which appear to be relatively minor and therefore tolerable to an early launch customer in Europe or the West would be rejected out of hand as totally inappropriate for a Japanese customer. In the event of a failure of this magnitude, the loss of face and deep shame suffered by the most Senior Japanese Executives may ultimately result in a final but more honourable outcome.
So to find these serious electrical issues occurring in such a high profile and valuable product makes me wonder to what extent the Supplier's Japanese Engineering teams and the Customer's Engineering teams were able to authorise design and production acceptance without prejudice when even to a layman with a laptop the battery systems would have been subject to the most intense scrutiny.
Has the Japanese culture of perfection, performance, reliability and maintainability changed so much in recent years that this type of issue could be overlooked? This aside from the FAA's position which I associate more appropriately with the U.S's position on the acceptance of risk.
..and yes, we also accepted that when the pre-release version of the product went to Japan a significant amount of re-engineering could be necessary to bring it up to the Japanese specification and this was understood.
Last edited by ImageGear; 25th Feb 2013 at 18:01.