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It can fly. |
Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries recently began delivering components for
jet engines to General Electric. The components are combustor
cases for the CF34-10 engine that General Electric is developing
for medium-sized airliners. They are the first jet engine
parts that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has supplied to General
Electric, one of the world's three largest manufacturers
of jet engines.
Combustor cases are crucial factors in jet engine
performance, and General Electric ordinarily manufactures
those components in-house. Its decision to purchase the
parts from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a huge vote of
confidence in the Japanese company's technological capabilities.
The CF34-10 engine is for airliners of 90 to
110 seats. Industry analysts expect demand for aircraft
in that size category to surge in the next few years. Management
at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries expect to deliver about 100
combustor cases annually to their new customer. |
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| Mitsubishi
Motors finally is preparing to enter the Canadian market
in a big way. Three-diamond vehicles are prominent on highways
south of the border, in the United States. But the automaker
has lacked a sales network in Canada. By early next year,
Mitsubishi Motors will establish a network of 51 Canadian
dealers, and management at the company plans to expand that
network to 150 outlets by 2007. |
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The Mitsubishi Lancer is headed north. |
Sales
of new Mitsubishi vehicles in Canada will get under way
with the 2003 model year. Management expects to sell at
least 20,000 vehicles in Canada in the first year and to
increase that volume to 37,000 units by 2007.
Members of Canada's automobile retailing industry
responded enthusiastically when Mitsubishi Motors revealed
that dealerships would become available. The marque's sales
have surged 69% in the United States in the past three years.
So Canadian dealers are understandably eager to get their
hands on the three-diamond sedans and sport-utility vehicles.
Mitsubishi Motors will enter the Canadian market
in style, offering fully eight models at the outset. And
it has announced plans to add three more models later. The
automaker will kick off its Canadian effort by exhibiting
the eight inaugural models at a January motor show in Montreal.
Those models comprise six passenger car models, including
the Lancer, Gallant and Eclipse, and a pair of sport-utility
vehicles, the Montero and Montero Sport. |
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IT
Frontier, a Mitsubishi company that specializes in information
technology solutions, is making corporate software applications
accessible to cellular telephones and other mobile communications
terminals. It is providing that valuable service through
collaboration with the Japanese subsidiary of the U.S. company
Everypath Inc.
Silicon Valley-based Everypath has supplied
scores of U.S. corporations with proprietary technology
for making their information systems accessible to mobile
communications. IT Frontier will make that technology--dubbed
the Everypath Mobile Application Platform--available to
companies in Japan. It will accompany the technology with
value-added support in system integration, maintenance and
other ancillary services. Management at IT Frontier plans
to market the Everypath technology to about 10 customers
in the first year of sales.
The Everypath Mobile Application Platform works
with cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs),
two-way television terminals and nearly every other kind
of mobile communications terminal. It lets customers use
those terminals to access their websites, their databases
and their software applications for enterprise resource
planning, customer relationship management, personal information
management and other functions. An especially welcome feature
of the Everypath technology is that it requires no modification
to existing software systems. |
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| Asahi
Glass is sharpening its focus on core operations and globalizing
its management perspective. In April, the company placed
its four principal lines of business under the management
of semiautonomous, virtual companies. The businesses of
the four newly established units are plate glass for buildings;
windows for automobiles; picture tubes and display panels
for television, video and computer displays; and chemical
products. |
Organizing
operations as separate units clarifies responsibility for
business and financial performance. It also has become an
occasion for internationalizing management further at Asahi
Glass. Heading two of the four new units are non-Japanese
executives. Luc Willame, former president of Asahi Glass's
Belgium-based Glaverbel subsidiary, has taken the helm of
the plate glass operations. And Jay Strong, former president
of Asahi Glass's United States-based AP Techno Glass subsidiary,
is in charge of the automotive glass operations.
In other moves to strengthen management, Asahi
Glass will reduce the size of its board of directors and
will recruit two directors from outside the company. The
company will shrink its governing board to 7 members, from
20. The external directors are a professor prominent in
the field of corporate governance and labor-management relations
and the chairman of I.B.M. Japan.
A
middle way
Shrinking
the board and recruitingoutside directors--both of whichmeasures
are scheduled to take effect in June--are moves to distinguish
between the functions of corporate oversight and business
management. The board of directors will be responsible for
oversight. Executives invested with the newly created title
of corporate officers will be responsible for day-to-day
management. Willame and Strong each will become corporate
officers.
Boards of directors in Japan traditionally
have consisted almost entirely of managers from inside the
company. The only common exceptions have been directors
from closely affiliated companies. In contrast, U.S. boards
consist mainly of outside directors, who represent the shareholders
in overseeing management.
Globalization and the escalating competition
for capital have prompted Japanese companies to modify their
traditional management structures. Asahi Glass's approach,
which other Mitsubishi companies also have adopted, is a
"middle way" between traditional Japanese practice
and the U.S. model. |
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It’s smart. |
DC
Card, a Mitsubishi company and a leading Japanese issuer
of credit cards, has begun providing its VISA cards with
embedded integrated circuits (ICs). IC cards, also known
as smart cards, can store information in their embedded
memory chips. That capability can support a diversity of
value-added functions, such as bonus-point programs for
purchases at designated retailers.
A
lot of know-how
New
holders of the DC VISA Gold Card began receiving IC cards
in autumn 2001. This February, DC Card also began issuing
IC cards to new holders of DC VISA Classic cards. And in
March, it began using IC cards for VISA cardholder renewals.
DC Card has been accumulating practical know-how
in IC cards and electronic money since 1998 through a pilot
project in Tokyo. It has enlisted more than 40 financial
institutions, card issuers and manufacturers to participate
in that project.
The pilot project has verified the feasibility
of bonus-point capabilities on IC cards. And DC Card is
equipping its IC-equipped VISA cards with those capabilities.
Cardholders can redeem the accumulated bonus points for
products and services of their choice at any participating
retailer. |
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