Honmono Story 3 A&D


	December 2007
	Honmono in The Making: Honmono Story 3

This editorial website includes personal
observations by Masa Eto on an array of topics,
from world affairs to business. Mr. Eto is the
managing executive officer of the International Division at A&D Company Ltd.

When we were invited by the Calibration Users Group (CUG) organized by the engine calibration engineers of the major automotive companies from Europe, the U.S and Japan to present the concept of our new engine calibration software, whose product name was to be "Open Real-time Intelligent Optimization Network" or "ORION" http://www.aandd.jp/whatnew/2007/orion 1.html, at the semi annual meeting held at Brussels, Belgium on May 7, 2007, we took the opportunity to make a commitment to the automotive industry to arrive with ORION, new automated calibration software equipped with an open structure, flexibility and a real-time measurement that would meet thus far unmet and long established requirements necessary to comply with increasingly sophisticated engine calibration standards, and we promised to release the first version on October 31, 2007.

"Open" structure means that ORION does not only work with A&D's test cells, but also works with any existing engine test cell chosen by the customer. "Flexibility" means that a user can easily program the measurement processes to suit his/her requirements. In addition, "Flexibility" means that ORION works with third party and/or in-house software as far as Design of Experiments, Modeling, Mapping and Optimization are concerned. "Real-time" means that it continues to collect measurement data without any delay from the set time interval, which is a feature that is critically important if one wants to perform transient measurements. When we made the commitment, we were very well aware that we had made a very ambitious and challenging proposition.

On November 20 this year, we found ourselves back at the same CUG Meeting, only this time it was held in Regensburg, Germany, and A&D and IAV together gave a workshop on ORION in front of the same group of people.

Since we had already launched the first version of ORION at the end of October, which meant we had met the promised release date, and we had successfully installed ORION to run on our engine test cell as well as on one important customer's test cell, we recognized that the focus of the workshop was to examine how close we had come to the commitment we made in May.

During the first meeting in May, there were several questions focusing on comparisons between ORION and other calibration products available on the market. This time however, there were no questions raised comparing ORION to competitor's products. Instead, all questions concerned ORION itself and there were even some suggestions for future upgrades. While observing the discussion-unfortunately the discussion was very technical and I could not fully follow it-I felt that ORION had the structure and methodology to occupy a firm position in the automotive industry if we continue to listen and respond to present and future market demands while strengthening its support structure. Moreover, I was very happy to recall and reaffirm the vision our bosses had when the ORION project was launched in 2006.

This experience brought me back to the first meeting we had with IAV http://www.iav.com/en/index.php, our partner in developing ORION at our Technical Center. At that first meeting, after each party explained their expectations and hopes for continued cooperation, Mr. Bluemenroder, President of IAV stood up, went to the front of the white board and drew three big circles. After writing the names of the three entities in each circle, he said in essence, "If we are to cooperate with each other, we must think of what is in the middle of these three circles." He then continued on to elaborate on what he meant, "We must focus our efforts on where the opportunities possessed by each of the three entities overlaps." IAV is an expert in engine calibration with its business model serving as an engineering consultant, ADC is a manufacturer of high performance electronic measuring instruments and ADT (http://www.aanddtech.com/) is an expert in the engine test cell business with competencies in offering a full range of test cell systems integration.

My notes during the meeting
　　　　　　　on August 25 , 2005

This first meeting had taken place on August 25th, 2005, a few weeks after A&D acquired the Powertrain Division of MTS Systems in the US (now A&D Technology or ADT). ADT and IAV were engaged in a joint project with a Japanese automobile manufacturer to develop a calibration tool and methodology, and this meeting presented the first occasion for the companies to directly become acquainted. With all three companies being technology and engineering driven companies, each company soon came to realize that we were facing a great opportunity.

Immediately after this meeting, on November 25th, 2005, Mr. Furukawa, myself, and the President of ADT, Mr. Koyama, made a visit to IAV Headquarters in Berlin, Germany where we crystallized what the overlapping region on Mr. Bluemenroder's diagram had suggested. Mr. Bluemenroder proposed that we jointly create a new calibration software by leveraging IAV's engine calibration know-how with A&D's measuring competency. A&D would then market and sell the new software commercially as an extension of A&D's measurement instrument business, while IAV would serve as a consultant throughout the whole operation.

Mr. Furukawa instantaneously agreed to Mr. Bluemenroder's proposition and proposed to develop a new engine calibration software using A&D's infra-structure for the multi-layer, object model based MathWorks Simulink. Everyone at the decision table understood the challenges of developing the proposal by Simulink alone, but Mr. Furukawa was very keen on the real-time feature and the software visualization Simulink could offer.

This was the genesis of the ORION project. There was no hesitation by the President of either company as they shared the same vision for cooperation. The decision was immediately translated into action or collaboration across three borders, Germany, Japan and the U.S.

I am not only proud to say it, but I truly believe this will become another great example of Honmono, given the common vision shared by all three companies, their persistent hard work and their dedication to optimizing their competencies. Having said that, it is also pertinent to mention that ORION is not complete and acknowledge that ORION will never be complete since the sophistication of engine development is an ongoing process. Therefore, it is more appropriate to describe this as a great example of "Honmono in the Making".

You may address any comments concerning this editorial by email to Mr. Eto