On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Jerry Keller (K3BZ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I don't think it's a "language barrier" that keeps the Big 3 from taking an
> accurate pulse of the amateur community... at least not in this country.
> Nowadays they each have plenty of English speakers in their management. But
> do they have real hams doing their design work? Do they have real hams
> getting real-time feedback from the users? Probably not so much. As you
> point out, that is what makes Elecraft really special.... we knows 'em, and
> they is us.
Sadly I think it's more than that. I believe it's more
a case of the "big company" syndrome. Customer feedback
gets lost in the process. My personal example is Yaesu and
the infamous FT-1000 family's key clicks. I spoke to Chip K7JA
who was then their main USA contact many times about this issue.
I'm sure Chip understood what I was saying and I'm sure he tried
to communicate with Japan. Yet it took no less than 15 years (!)
for Yaesu to implement the fix in production. Why???? Elecraft
would have done it in a matter of hours!
The really strange thing to me is that most Japanese
companies are zealous practitioners of Deming, kaizen, etc
all of which stress the importance of meeting customer needs
and applying that to continuous process improvement. Something
was badly broken inside the Yaesu company somewhere.
I'll leave you with a favorite quote from Wayne N6KR...it's
paraphrased since I can't find the exact reference:
"It's possible for engineers to understand customers' comments
and ignore them...except around here."
This is truly what sets the company apart and ahead of all others.
73, Bill W4ZV
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