Why are japanese engineers better then other engineers?

Question

they make the best cars and people say that their technology is like years ahead of anyone else's.

Answer 1

This is not true. The ability or proficiency of an engineer depends on the person and not on his nationality. Any other engineer who took his studies seriously would probably be better than twenty Japanese engineers who did nothing but slept through their classes.

For one thing, most Japanese engineers can hardly speak English while others have no problem with the language.

Answer 2

I wouldn't say they were any better at engineering....

But what I might say, is they seem to better/faster at getting technology (rather than engineering per se.) into the marketplace. They also see to have a knack for understanding what sells, allowing sales profits to ploughed back into R&D, and manufacturing capability/

Some of that is certainly to do with industrialisation which was at a quite low level in the far east in the early 20 century. Because they were playing catch up, with Industrialised Europe/America they were prepared to take risks (with new ideas/technology) and didn't have legacy manufacturing processes hindering them (choice of "new" workforce/machines gives great flexibility)

The Japanese seems to have remembered how they industrialised so fast (between about 1910 and 1960) and have managed to apply many of the lessons there leaned, WITHOUT making mistakes (eg Britain's clothing manufactures invested heavily in nylon in the 1950's and it flopped badly, leading to almost complete collapse of Britain's clothing industry!)

---

Perhaps controversally I'd argue that people who speak different LANGUAGES (rather than nationality/race) probably have a tendency to have different aproaches/success with engineering. Surely the language a person is exposed to/use MUST affect how they conceptulise "the world", and different languages have differing "ease" of conveiying different types of information?

The Ancient Greeks cames up with loads of inventions, but were fairly rubbish at putting them into use/perfecting them. They seem to have been fairly good at arts/poetry though. The Romans tended not  to come up with anything (borrowing most of the ideas instead), and then developed the enginneering ideas and "perfected" them. They were rubbish with poetry, and their "histories"/biographies, while being (apparently) matter of fact/full of details, lack flourishes, and are usually quite borring to read. They do appear have been sticklers for detail, and it's attention to detail which seems to help "perfect" machines

If you cant express an idea clearly/precisely, then it's difficult to make progress with "scientific" subjects, as debate/"bouncing ideas around" is hindered. (The flip side is information/knowledge/conversation which can't be "proven"/deduced scientifically tend to thrive. Stuff like Poetry, art and the Humanities)

(Having a highly formularised/constructed language I wonder how good Rusian engineers will once bugetry constraints are the same as elsewhere...)

Answer 3

the perception is so because asian countries put strong emphasis on math and science in their middle and high schools. as a result they just end up having multitudes of engineers available. if you add their ancient knack for discovering stuff, it looks like they are better. there is no real difference.

Answer 4

It's not the engineers, it's the management. When the captain directs the ship on the wrong route, no matter how well the sailors perform, they will inevitably  end up in the wrong place.

The US has a capital structure that emphasizes short term performance over long term; federal and state governments make tax and regulatory policies that discourage business in general and good management in particular; corporate structures assure managers are largely chosen based on political finesse and self-promotion rather than technical or managerial skills.

Other western countries are similar, but perhaps not as stark in their management practices.

Japanese firms tend to promote engineers more into management positions; they train their people to listen to customers and subordinates and use fact based decisions rather than arrogantly dictating decisions based on unsubstantiated personal opinion; they emphasize controlled processes with monitoring and continuous improvement rather than setting up a design or process and leaving it for years without change. All these basic tendencies give better results.