University Entrepreneurship and Innovation

(written by: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

The lecture about University Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation by Prof. Shigeo Kagami coincided with current situation of employee slash by many companies in the world. One interesting point of Japan that I had noticed for a long time is about the tendency of the most university graduates to only have one choice in their mind: working in a company. Why this phenomenon happens? We’ll see through this again after going through several notable points of lectures delivered by Prof. Shigeo Kagami from University of Tokyo.

Prof. Kagami started the lecture by posing the most exciting and notably successful university entrepreneurship, i.e. Hewlett-Packard, Genentech, and Google. All these companies were founded by the professors and students of Stanford University. Google is one interesting and up-to-date example. Stanford University tried to license out the technology and Intellectual Property (IP) of Google to some companies such as Netscape, Yahoo, but failed. The university eventually helped Larry Page and Sergey Brin to found Google in 1998 and just in 10 years, the market capitalization of Google has reached $150 billion (August 2008). Since Google used its equity to pay royalty for the licensed technology from Stanford University, Stanford gained $400 million just by selling its 1% of ownership of Google¹.

Here we can see how, as a matter of fact, universities could get considerable benefits by the entrepreneur spin-off. In Japan itself, since 2004, a policy by the Monbukagakusho, had start reforming the corporate national universities (including University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, etc) to gain more autonomy, at the expenses of continuous deduction of operational grants from the government (1% deduction per annum)². Such a condition like this should have pushed the universities to diversify and restructure the composition of their income. One way is to increase the external funding which comes from the sponsored research and donations. In this case, the sponsored research could be accelerated by the university spin-off companies.

However, Japan universities are still facing several problems regarding this entrepreneur spin-off. Annually, the number of university start-up companies is about 100 companies³. This number might look big enough, but there’s still no clear definition about how to count those companies, or whether they are really ignited by the technology license from the universities. Therefore, for now, only low output of university ignited-companies could be expected. This phenomenon goes along with low willingness of university graduates to become entrepreneurs.

Then, coming back to our previous question of why most students after their graduation from universities in Japan, would prefer choosing to work at companies? This is rather a tough question. One main reason, in my opinion, is caused by the rather already-established of Japan’s economy. Big companies are established and agglomerated in Keiretsu⁴, and it’s just not easy to compete with such companies. The other reason is that the entrepreneurship education is not nurtured sufficiently in most Japanese universities. Students, after undergoing their deep academic research, will feel further and further away from the sense of entrepreneurship.

How to solve the problems then? One of the possibilities is to create the entrepreneurship-related education as well as university business incubators. One example conducted by University of Tokyo is to create DUCR (Division of University Corporate Relations) which could handle the IP-related problems, entrepreneurship and enterprise development and education, as well as even holding the business plan competition. By this kind of education, hopefully, the courage to create new business entrepreneurship, amidst the Keiretsu dominance, could be accelerated. As a saying goes, “Smart people are people who dare to take the risks”.

 

References

¹ http://www.stanford.edu

² http://www.mext.go.jp

³ http://www.meti.go.jp

⁴ Willy Yanto Wijaya. 公器 and Japanese Shareholder Orientation, Report no. 7, Managerial Perspective for Sustainable Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, 2008.

Momen ke Momen

(Oleh: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

Dalam hidup ini banyak sekali hal yang kita kejar. Apa saja yang bisa dikejar, pasti kita kejar.

Mungkin sewaktu kecil, ketika terpesona melihat bianglala, kita mencoba mengejarnya, dari satu ujung ke ujung yang lain, penasaran di manakah ujung dari bianglala tersebut. Akan tetapi ketika kita semakin mendekati tempat asal munculnya si bianglala, eh tiba-tiba saja untaian 7 warna tangga bidadari tersebut semakin memudar, dan akhirnya hilang..

Tapi, ada kala, kita merasa bangga dan hebat, kala berhasil mengejar layangan yang terputus talinya, setelah mengerahkan segenap tenaga kita yang tersisa sembari berharap hembusan angin agar mereda dan menjatuhkan layangan tersebut.

Mungkin pernah juga kita mengamati balon yang melayang di udara, semakin lama semakin tinggi, sambil penasaran di mana balon tersebut akan kempes dan jatuh?

Demikian juga tiada bedanya ketika manusia beranjak dewasa. Mengejar asmara, kekayaan, kekuasaan dan ketenaran. Manusia menciptakan banyak sistem untuk memenuhi kepuasan mereka: sistem pacaran, sistem kerja/ perusahaan, sistem pendidikan (sekolah), sistem agama, sistem kepercayaan, sistem upacara, sistem jejaring sosial (seperti facebook), sistem penghargaan (piagam, piala), organisasi sosial, perkumpulan, dan sistem-sistem lainnya. Manusia menciptakan dunia abstrak agar mereka merasa eksis dan berharga, manusia menciptakan dunia khayal tempat melampiaskan hasrat-hasrat narsisme mereka.

Sistem-sistem ini sudah mulai diciptakan bahkan sejak peradaban itu sendiri mulai muncul. Sebagian dari sistem-sistem ini terus menerus diwariskan, sebagian lagi telah punah dan mati, dan tergantikan oleh sistem-sistem baru yang muncul. Patah satu, tumbuh seribu. Bukankah naluri pengejaran kita dan juga sistem-sistem yang kita tapaki sebagian besar hanyalah plagiat dari naluri dan sistem yang telah dilakoni oleh leluhur-leluhur kita?

Sementara itu panah waktu terus melesat. Lalu kemana kah eksistensi leluhur kita, dan juga diri kita sendiri, ketika panah waktu ini melesat 1000 tahun ke depan? Akh, rasanya mirip seperti benteng pasir di tepi pantai yang habis tersapu ombak…

Ketika sedang dalam hasrat panas-panasnya mengejar ini itu, tahu tahunya ombak besar telah siap menyapu habis semuanya… dimana lagi artinya pengejaran-pengejaran tersebut??

——————————————————

“Anda terkena kanker payudara,” kata dokter bedah dengan mimik serius di wajahnya. Saya hanya tertawa dan berkata, “Tidak, benjolan itu bukan apa-apa. Bukankah itu yang Anda katakan sebelumnya?” “Anda terkena kanker payudara,” ia mengulangi. Yang hanya dapat saya lakukan adalah melihat ke dalam matanya dan berkata, “Itu pasti hanya bercanda. Saya baru 27 tahun…” Selama ini saya mengira bahwa kanker payudara adalah penyakit orang-orang seusia ibu saya ataupun wanita yang memiliki riwayat penyakit ini di dalam keluarganya. Namun tanggal 24 Februari, enam minggu setelah ulang tahun ke-27 saya, saya memulai perang dengan tubuh saya.

Dokter saya terlihat pucat ketika dia memberitahukan kabar ini kepada saya. Saya menatap foto putrinya serasa berjam-jam, yang kelihatan mirip dengan saya – muda, rambut hitam, mata coklat. Seorang pengacara, saya diberitahu. Itu bisa saja dia, dia bisa saja saya. Tetapi itu bukanlah dia. Saya telah terkena penyakit yang tidak ada obatnya – hanya pengobatan yang bisa saja berhasil ataupun gagal. Tidak ada janji, tidak ada jaminan. Pada usia 27, saya telah memikirkan rentang hidup saya ke depannya. Hari sebelum biopsi (pemeriksaan), saya menginginkan sebuah keluarga, anak-anak, sebuah rumah, sebuah mobil. Sekarang, tiga jam sesudah biopsi, saya menginginkan seseorang untuk memberitahu saya bagaimana saya akan memberitahukan teman-teman saya bahwa mungkin saya tidak akan hidup melewati tahun ini.

Saya baru saja mengikuti reuni ke-5, dimana saya bertemu rekan-rekan yang sedang menapaki karir dan hidup mereka. Bagi kebanyakan dari kami di reuni tersebut, tahun ke-5 sesudah wisuda tampaknya adalah masa transisi. Kami akan membuat keputusan mengenai pilihan-pilihan arah hidup kami – memulai, mengakhiri, atau barangkali berpikir melanjutkan pendidikan, menikah, pindah… Saya tidak pernah mengira bahwa kurang dari setahun kemudian, saya akan mengambil keputusan hanya mengenai bagaimana saya akan bertahan hidup.

(Barnard: Musim Gugur 97)

 

A Brief View upon Carnot Cycle and Gas Power Cycles

(written by: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

In thermodynamics, two most exciting and important cycles are Power Cycles and Refrigeration Cycles. Simply say, power cycles are thermodynamic cycles that convert other energy (usually heat) into work (power output). On the other hand, refrigeration cycles are thermodynamic cycles that utilize work (power input) to extract heat from one reservoir (lower temperature) and transfer it to the other reservoir (high temperature). Based on the phase of working fluid, thermodynamic cycles can also be categorized as gas cycles and vapor cycles. In this writing, we will focus particularly on the gas power cycle and its connection with the Carnot cycle.

Carnot cycle is an ideal thermodynamic cycle which comprises of no irreversibility. Therefore, heat engine (device operated on power cycle) based on the Carnot power cycle will have the theoretical maximum efficiency. However, even with no irreversibility, the efficiency of Carnot cycle will never be 100%. The reason is that in order to complete a full cycle, some heat has to be dissipated to the reservoir. This is actually the essence of the second law of thermodynamics. Then how is the maximum possible efficiency of Carnot cycle? Based on the Kelvin-Planck statement and thermodynamic temperature scale, the efficiency of Carnot cycle depends only upon the reservoirs temperatures (Eff_th,carnot = 1 – (T_L/T_H)).

As a matter of fact, Carnot cycle is composed of four processes:

1-2: isothermal heat addition

2-3: isentropic (adiabatic + internally reversible) expansion

3-4: isothermal heat rejection

4-1: isentropic compression.

These processes can be described with the P-V and T-S diagrams as shown in Fig.1. However, in reality, the process (1-2) and (3-4) (isothermal heat addition and rejection) are difficult to be realized (it will require very large heat exchangers and take a long time). Therefore, Carnot cycle is not suitable and realistic as an ideal model for the actual power cycles.

The actual power cycles are apparently quite complex and thus some assumptions are made to simplify them without losing the essence. Air standard assumptions are also utilized in the ideal gas power cycles. Here, we shall pick two samples of ideal gas power cycles (Otto and diesel cycles), and briefly discuss them with comparison to the Carnot cycle.

Otto cycle is the ideal model for the spark-ignition engine. This air-standard Otto cycle is composed of four processes:

1-2: isentropic compression

2-3: isochoric heat addition

3-4: isentropic expansion

4-1: isochoric heat rejection,

which can be described with the P-V and T-S diagrams (as shown in Fig.2). In this ideal Otto cycle (also Diesel cycle), there is no internal irreversibility (such as: flow friction, etc) however they may still have external irreversibility (such as heat transfer through a finite temperature difference). This is the reason why the thermal efficiencies of these ideal power cycles are lower than the thermal efficiency of Carnot cycle. From the above-mentioned four processes, we can see that the “heat addition and rejection” processes in Otto cycle are not isothermal (as in the Carnot cycle), and therefore entropy will be generated through this heat transfer processes.

The same thing happens in Diesel cycle as well. Diesel cycle is the ideal cycle for the compression-ignition engines, which is composed of following processes:

1-2: isentropic compression

2-3: isobaric heat addition

3-4: isentropic expansion

4-1: isochoric heat rejection,

and described by the P-V and T-S diagrams (Fig.3). Indeed there is no internal irreversibility in this Diesel power cycle, however some external irreversibility still occurs i.e. in the isobaric heating (2-3) and isochoric cooling (1-4) above. Therefore, the thermal efficiency of Diesel engine will be also lower than that of Carnot cycle. It is interesting to note that the main difference between the ideal Diesel cycle and Otto cycle is just the heat addition process (2-3).

Further, many other power cycles, either gas or vapor cycles, have been developed. These power cycles are certainly somewhat idealization of the actual power cycles, however they still serve as a useful and more suitable model for the actual implementation compared with the Carnot cycle. Therefore, we can conclude that the differences these ideal power cycles possess from the Carnot cycle are substantially caused by their practical-oriented implementation for different specific real-system applications respectively.

公器 and Japanese Shareholder Orientation

(written by: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

– for the preliminary introduction, please read here –

The lecture by Ms. Masako Egawa from Japan Research Center – Harvard Business School highlighted an interesting analysis on why Japanese managers have weak shareholder orientation. This report will put these all analysis into a nut-shell and then connect it with one interesting concept of Japanese perspective, i.e. Kouki (公器) which literally means “public bowl”.

Traditionally, Japan has a very strong banking system. This banking system had rooted since the Meiji Restoration period, and then developed further to become the Zaibatsu (as I had written in my previous note)¹. After the WWII, this Zaibatsu transformed into Keiretsu and continued to hold strong power over Japan’s economy². Since most of the companies got their fund from these Keiretsu, many intervene and management take-over could happen when the companies faced financial difficulty. Therefore, these main banks (keiretsu) will act as the monitoring institution; will have the ability of cross-shareholding, as well as the long-term partner of the companies.

Since these zaibatsu (keiretsu) have massive capital and relied mostly on self-funding, the stock/ capital market didn’t develop very much. Besides, Japanese managers also had skepticism toward short-term and speculative nature of investors. These two factors, added with the inefficient market and market manipulation that once happened at the stock prices of Japan Main Banks in 1984, have yielded weak shareholder orientation of the Japanese managers.

The factors explained above are the structural factors, i.e. factors related to the stock market and economic mechanism itself. However, there are also socio-cultural aspects that make the weak shareholder orientation of Japanese managers. One of these socio-cultural aspects is the concept of 公器 (public entity). This concept is originated from the Matsushita Management Creed by Konosuke Matsushita which has influenced many Japanese managers³. 公器 is about the strong sense of social responsibility that a corporate/ company should have. It indirectly emphasizes the sense that a company should have more responsibility to public, society, and employees rather than to a small group of persons (investors/ shareholders). Traditionally, the culture of “life-time employment” in Japan is also much inspired by the Matsushita commitment to maintain its employees amidst the economic crisis that happened after the WWII.

Another tradition in Japan is the tendency to limit the investors’ ownership to sustain the family business, for example: “Soyu” in Mitsui Family. By doing this, the family (management board) will avoid much conflicts/ confrontation that might be caused by the interest of the investors. Therefore, the management can have more peace of mind in doing business and planning for the long-term growth. This shows us once more of how very natural cultures of Japanese people to avoid friction/ conflicts as well as keeping uniformity and harmony for the growth.

These socio-cultural factors, combined with the economic-structural factors mentioned above, then lead to relatively weak shareholder orientation of Japanese companies. This is indicated by the hampered development of Japanese capital market and financial institutions. However, even though giving some negative implications, these Japanese management perspectives have also given several significant advantages i.e. keeping the low cost of capital for companies; contributing to the rapid economy growth; as well as allowing the companies to plan the long-term growth and enhanced competitiveness.

The last and most difficult question is that should Japanese company management change their perspectives and transform into a stronger, more concerned shareholder orientation? This is a tough question. In my opinion, as long as the current Japanese perspective works well and could overcome the disadvantages it might bring, it will still last for some significant time until the future. In case the contrary results happen, I am sure that Japanese companies will be flexible and will modify their perspectives to meet the challenges that might obstruct them in the future.

The time will answer…

References

¹ Willy Yanto Wijaya. Japanese-style Management: A Preliminary Study, Report 6 Managerial Perspective for Sustainable Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, 2008.

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu

³ John P. Kotter. Matsushita Leadership, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998.

Quotes

The untrapped mind is open enough to see many possibilities,
humble enough to learn from anyone and anything,
forbearing enough to forgive all,
perceptive enough to see things as they really are
and reasonable enough to judge their true value.

(Konosuke Matsushita)

Types of Fuel Cell: Pros and Cons

(written by: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

There are many types of fuel cells, which are mostly classified based on the types of the electrolytes or fuels being used. Here, we will discuss briefly several most common types of fuel cells, as well as their characteristics.

1. PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell)

PEMFC has a solid polymer membrane as an electrolyte with the working temperature range 50-120°C which is quite low compared with other types of fuel cell. PEMFC also has high power density, it can vary its output quickly to meet shift in power demand. PEMFC also has low weight and volume with good power-to-weight ratio. These characteristics make PEMFC suitable for mobile and automotive applications. The efficiency of PEMFC ranges between 40-60%. However, PEMFC is sensitive to fuel impurities, such as CO poisoning. Besides, efforts should also be made to decrease the cost of expensive platinum catalyst (and thus expensive cost of its output electricity)

2. DMFC (Direct Methanol Fuel Cell)

DMFC has the same electrolyte as PEMFC, while the fuel input is methanol. The temperature range of this DMFC is slightly higher than PEMFC, ranging 90-120°C. Currently, DMFC is limited in the power it can produce, but it can still store a high energy content in a small space. This means DMFC can produce a small amount of power over a long period of time. These characteristics of DMFC make it suitable for tiny to mid-sized applications, to power cellular phones and laptops.

3. SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell)

SOFC uses a hard, non-porous ceramic compound as the electrolyte, and operate at high temperature; about 800-1000°C. High temperature operation eliminates the need for precious metal catalyst, and SOFC is also tolerant to CO poisoning. Several advantages of SOFC include high efficiencies (60-65%), long term stability, fuel flexibility, low emissions, and cost. SOFC is well-suited for stationary applications; medium-to-large scale, on-site power generation. However, due to its high operating temperature, SOFC requires longer start-up time as well as some mechanical/ chemical compatibility issues.

4. MCFC (Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell)

MCFC operates at 600-750°C, using molten alkali carbonate mixture (such as NaHCO₃) as the electrolyte. MCFC has high efficiency (50-60%), tolerant to carbon poisoning, able to use non-precious metals as catalyst thus reducing cost. However, MCFC faces some problems related to durability due to its high operating temperature and the corrosive nature of its electrolyte.

5. PAFC (Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell)

PAFC uses molten phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) as its electrolyte, with working temperature 150-200°C. With this temperature condition, compared with PEMFC, PAFC is more tolerant to impurities. PAFC can tolerate a CO concentration of about 1.5%. PAFC, with efficiency about 40%, are commercially available, widely installed in many facilities, suited for stationary applications. However, PAFC solidifies at a temperature of 40°C, making startup difficult and restraining PAFC to continuous operation.

6. AFC (Alkaline Fuel Cell)

The electrolyte of AFC is solution of potassium hydroxide, with typical operating temperature about 70°C. It has been used by NASA to produce power and drinking water for astronauts since 1960. AFC can reach high efficiency up to 60-70%. However, AFC can be poisoned easily by small quantities of carbon dioxide, that’s why AFC typically operate on pure oxygen (causing cost increase), and they are mostly used in controlled aerospace or underwater applications.

Bulan yang Indah

Ryokan, seorang guru Zen, hidup sangat sederhana di sebuah pondok kecil di kaki sebuah gunung. Suatu petang, seorang pencuri mendatangi pondok itu hanya untuk menemukan tak ada apa pun di situ yang dapat dicuri.

Ryokan pulang dan memergoki. “Engkau mungkin sudah berjalan jauh untuk mengunjungiku,” katanya kepada pencuri itu, “dan Engkau tidak semestinya kembali dengan tangan kosong. Ambillah pakaianku sebagai hadiah.”

Pencuri itu kebingungan. Ia mengambil pakaian itu dan menyelonong pergi.

Ryokan duduk telanjang, memperhatikan bulan. “Teman yang miskin,” ia termenung, “aku mengharap bisa memberinya bulan yang indah ini.”

(dikutip dari buku “Menghidupkan Kebenaran Kita”, Penerbit Karaniya)

Japanese-style Management: A Preliminary Study

(written by: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

As a leading country in Asia in term of economy, Japan has become a magnet to draw attention of foreign countries to study how it conducts the management of its economy, how the economy system and management styles of the companies being conducted, as well as what strength and weakness those systems might possess. This is actually not an easy question, yet it worth so much to be studied. The studies of the economy and especially the management style of Japanese people, as a matter of fact, are so closely linked with the cultures and perspectives of the Japanese people. In the following paragraphs, we’ll go through several management styles (employment practices and financial characteristics) which are very uniquely Japan. We shall also consider some plus and minus points of those management styles.

1. Employment Practices

One of the most couldn’t-be-understandable employment practices in Japan is the “life-time” employment, or we can say that employees are expected to stay or loyal to a certain company until he/she retire. This is so typically unique in Japan which could hardly be found in other countries. Actually, there is a very interesting story about this “life-time” employment practice. This is about Matsushita Electric Company in the years when Japan got defeat at wars and economic slump.¹ Many peoples lost their jobs, social riots and poverty increased significantly, unemployment rate swelled to the peak. At that time, the founder of Matsushita strived to maintain the employees by negotiating with the employee some cuts of the salary; and urged them to endure the time of crisis and difficulties. Having a job was so precious that time, even though got salary-cut, the employees were so heartily grateful to the commitment of the company for maintaining the employment. Since that time, they even worked harder to struggle the crisis and became even more loyal to company. This practice of “life-time” employment later inspired more and more companies to follow the same path.

“Life-time” employment, with the care to the employees even after retirement, will undoubtfully be a strong point in the emotional aspects and loyalty of employees to the company. By this, the companies will not worry about the company-secrets transfer to other companies through the work-force mobility, as well as saving much time in the matter of training new employees. However, on the other hand, this might also give certain disadvantages to the employee, such as less freedom and flexibility. To mention a vivid example, say, that an employee working for several years in a company feels bored and wants to gain a different atmosphere in another company, it will be difficult for him/ her to do so, since the new company where he/ she would like to join also already has the mind-set of “life-time” employment and will feel doubtful to accept this new employee. Another worse case is when there’s a change in the management board of a certain company, and then this board implements bad policies to the workers. The workers have to think twice before deciding to quit, since it’s gonna not easy to find a new job at other companies. This “life-time” employment policy could also become serious problems when the company stop growing and have to re-organize its work-forces. “Life-time” employment policy might also, in certain extends, make the employees lazy and not efficient since they think that in what-so-ever conditions, the company will still maintain them as employees.

Other typical employment practices in Japan are the seniority system and company-based union. These two aspects will also give plus and minus sides as well. Since the salary and promotion in Japanese companies are mostly based on Seniority, this will urge the employees to be loyal and stay longer in a company. However, this kind of system could hamper the achievements of brilliant and talented persons.

Company-based union in Japan, so far as been observed, will cooperate so well with the company. This is certainly good for the productivity of the company (very seldom work-strikes). However, in case the company treats the employees badly, here the employees don’t have much power to resist.

2. Financial Characteristics

The economy of Japan is highly influenced by Keiretsu, a set of companies with interlocking business relationship and shareholdings², which we can view as a type of business groups. It has a long history originating from Zaibatsu (conglomerate) pre WWII which highly dominated Japanese economy. However, while Zaibatsu is more family-controlled vertical monopolies; Keiretsu are controlled by groups of professional managers.

In my opinion, Zaibatsu system will pose an unhealthy mechanism of a Nation’s economy even though I realized that a well-governed Zaibatsu could contribute very well to the development of Nation’s Economy. Too strong Zaibatsu could interfere with political world, monopoly and suppression to small and middle scale companies, and could form the sharp and centralized wealth distribution. When the power of Zaibatsu is being mis-used, or the management system is poorly conducted; a fall of Zaibatsu could destroy severely a nation’s economy. Keiretsu possess some similar characteristics, though with a better sense and more professional management.

Several famous Zaibatsu were: Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, and Yasuda. These four later transformed into several Keiretsu up to now; and even some of them had merged further such as Mitsui-Sumitomo with the core bank SMBC; Mitsubishi with UFJ (formerly Sanwa Bank/ Group) to form MUFG.³ Then why these gigantic corporations still want to merge to form an even bigger giant? One of the reasons, I think, is to consolidate the asset and market segments, as well as to face the challenges from other foreign companies/ corporations. By synchronizing the strategies, the merging Keiretsu hope to better anticipate any further threat from other gigantic companies. This is also pushed by the more growth-oriented and market share orientation of Japanese perspectives, compared to the profit-orientation. This is one of reasons why Japanese products could penetrate many parts of the worlds, which will automatically pushed further the asset capitalization of those companies.

3. Further Analysis

So far, we have discussed several aspects of the strength of Japanese companies that make them succeed, as well as some of the possible weakness/ disadvantages of those characteristics. Then, is there any possibility that some characteristics of Japanese style management might fit very well to some kinds of projects, while not well to some others?

Some of the characteristics such as seniority-based salary might not be so suitable in the creative industries, for example, where ideas, talent do matter the most. Projects that involve a lot of out-sourcing, ideas, and innovations or projects that have short-term period might also don’t fit so well to the several Japanese-style employment practices. However, since the Japanese people are so smart, ideas can be generated to tackle this disadvantage. For example, a major camera company, CANON always asks feedback from all its employees and gives rewards to innovative ideas and creations.

With its typical low cost of equity (low dividend payment), cooperative company unions, less hostile share-holders; the management board of a company could feel more peace of mind and concentrate with the development. This is really one big advantage of Japanese management characteristic. The production will run smoothly, not so much working-strike by employees, and thus increased efficiency and performance.

As if I am an investor, it’s not so appealing to invest money on equity in Japan (low dividend payment). If I am a supplier or employee, it’s very important to choose a company whom you could give trust to (since it might become your “life-time” bond). While thinking of joint research project with a Japanese company, it is very important to:

• Understand the culture of the company and Japanese people.
• What kind of project it is and which type of Japanese-style managements that will not be so suitable.
• Possible ideas to tackle some of the disadvantages of Japanese systems.

References

¹ John P. Kotter. Matsushita Leadership, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998.

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu

³ Kenichi Miyashita, David Russell. Keiretsu: inside the hidden Japanese conglomerates, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1995.

Katak yang Nakal

(Cerita Rakyat dari Korea)

Seekor anak katak tinggal bersama ibunya yang telah menjanda di sebuah kolam yang besar. Anak katak ini luar biasa nakal dan pembuat onar, ia tidak pernah mau mendengarkan nasehat ibunya dan selalu membuat ibunya sedih dan juga malu.

Kalau Ibu Katak menyuruhnya pergi bermain ke bukit, ia pergi ke tepi pantai. Kalau ibunya minta ia ke desa atas, ia ke desa bawah. Kalau ibunya menyuruhnya ini, ia melakukan itu. Apapun yang ibunya katakan, ia selalu melakukan kebalikannya.

“Apa yang harus aku lakukan terhadap anak ini?” Ibu Katak mengomel. “Kenapa ia tidak bisa bersikap seperti anak-anak katak lainnya? Mereka selalu mendengarkan dan melakukan apa yang disuruh; mereka juga selalu patuh dan baik hati. Aku tidak tahu ia akan jadi apa kalau ia terus bersikap seperti ini. Aku harus melakukan sesuatu untuk menghentikan kebiasaan buruknya.” Ibu Katak menghela nafas panjang.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Anak Katak tertawa. “Hentikan semua omelan itu. Ibu tidak perlu mengkhawatirkan aku. Aku akan baik-baik saja sebagaimana adanya.”

“Benarkah itu?” tanya Ibu Katak. “Lalu kenapa kamu bahkan tidak bisa bersuara dengan benar? Kamu bahkan tidak mengeluarkan suara layaknya seekor katak. Sini, Ibu ajari kamu.” Sambil tersenyum, Ibu Katak mengeluarkan suara ‘Kruok! Kruok!’, “Sekarang kamu coba!”

Sambil menyeringai lebar, Anak Katak mengeluarkan suara ‘Kruik! Kruik!’

“Kenapa kamu nakal sekali! Apa kamu ingin membuat Ibu mati penasaran?!” teriak Ibu Katak. “Dengarkanlah Ibu kalau kamu ingin menjadi katak yang baik. Sekarang kamu…”

“Kruik! Kruik!” sahut si Anak Katak, sambil melompat pergi.

Hari demi hari Ibu Katak memarahi anaknya, tapi si Anak Katak tetap saja melakukan apa yang ia inginkan dan selalu melakukan kebalikan dari apa yang dikatakan oleh ibunya. Ibu Katak merasa resah dan sedemikian kuatir mengenai anaknya sampai-sampai Ibu Katak jatuh sakit. Tetap saja, si Anak Katak masih nakal dan bertingkah laku sesukanya.

Suatu hari Ibu Katak, terbaring di ranjang, memanggilnya, “Anakku,” ia berkata, “Ibu merasa tidak akan hidup lama lagi. Ketika Ibu mati, janganlah kubur Ibu di gunung, kuburlah Ibu di samping sungai.” Ibu Katak mengatakan ini karena ia tahu bahwa anaknya akan melakukan kebalikan dari apa yang disuruhnya.

Beberapa hari kemudian, Ibu Katak tiada. Anak Katak menangis dan terus menangis. “Oh, Ibuku yang malang! Aku telah membuat Ibu demikian resah karena tingkah lakuku. Kenapa aku tidak pernah mendengarkan kata-kata Ibu?!” Anak Katak menyalahkan dirinya. “Sekarang Ibu telah pergi. Aku telah membunuh Ibu. Aku membunuh Ibu.”

Anak Katak teringat kembali masa-masa ketika bersama ibunya dan semua masalah serta kenakalan yang telah ia lakukan terhadap ibunya. Lalu ia berkata dalam hati, “Aku selalu melakukan kebalikan dari apa yang Ibu suruh karena aku mengira itu menyenangkan. Akan tetapi kali ini aku akan melakukan sesuai permintaan terakhir Ibu.”

Jadi, Anak Katak mengubur ibunya di samping sungai, walaupun ia merasa hal itu kuranglah bijaksana.

Beberapa minggu kemudian, terjadilah hujan badai. Hujan yang sedemikian deras menyebabkan sungai meluap. Anak Katak tidak bisa tidur karena terus mengkhawatirkan kuburan ibunya akan terhanyut oleh luapan air. Akhirnya ia pergi untuk menjaga kuburan ibunya.

Di tengah guyuran hujan, Anak Katak duduk, dan terus menerus menangis, “Kruok! Kruok! Mohon janganlah menghanyutkan Ibu!” Dan itulah yang dilakukan oleh si Anak Katak setiap kali hujan turun.

Dan sejak saat itulah, katak-katak akan selalu bersuara “Kruok! Kruok!” setiap kali hujan turun.

(diterjemahkan dan diadaptasi oleh Willy Yanto Wijaya dari buku “Korean Folk & Fairy Tales”, Penerbit Hollym Int, 1991)

Anjing Hachiko, Arti Sebuah Kesetiaan

(Oleh: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

Jika Anda mengunjungi Shibuya, pusat perbelanjaan terpadat di Tokyo, Anda mungkin akan menemukan sebuah patung anjing di salah satu pintu keluar stasiun. Patung ini didirikan untuk mengenang Hachiko, anjing ras Akita yang sangat terkenal akan kesetiaannya.

1923. Di musim dingin yang menggigit, diantara hamparan salju di Prefektur Akita, seekor anak anjing ditinggalkan oleh pemiliknya. Profesor Hidesaburo Ueno yang menemukan anak anjing ini merasa iba, dan membawanya pulang. Anak anjing yang imut dan lucu ini benar-benar menggemaskan dan membawakan kegembiraan hati bagi Profesor Ueno. Setiap hari Profesor selalu berbagi makanan dengannya, memandikannya dan merawatnya. Profesor memberikan nama “Hachiko” kepada anak anjing ini.

Hachiko pun sangat menyukai Profesor. Pada tahun 1924, Hachiko dibawa ke Tokyo oleh Profesor Ueno, yang memang mengajar jurusan pertanian di Universitas Tokyo. Setiap hari Profesor berangkat ke kampus menggunakan densha (kereta api) dari stasiun Shibuya. Setiap hari pula Hachiko selalu menemani Profesor berangkat ke stasiun Shibuya. Setelah Profesor berangkat, Hachiko pun akan pulang ke rumah dengan sendirinya, kemudian sore harinya, datang lagi ke stasiun Shibuya untuk menunggu kepulangan Profesor. Setiap kali Profesor turun dari densha, Hachiko pun terlihat telah menunggunya. Hachiko dan Profesor kemudian akan pulang ke rumah bersama-sama.

Demikianlah hari demi hari Hachiko selalu mengantarkan dan menemani Profesor Ueno.

Suatu hari, Profesor merasa kurang sehat. Walaupun demikian, Profesor tetap berangkat mengajar seperti biasanya. Hachiko pun, seperti biasanya, menemani Profesor berangkat ke stasiun Shibuya. Ketika sedang mengajar, Profesor tiba-tiba limbung dan terjatuh. Profesor Ueno mengalami serangan stroke. Murid-murid dan staf kampus yang kaget, segera membawa Profesor ke rumah sakit. Akan tetapi, nyawa Profesor tidak tertolong lagi.

Hachiko, sore harinya, seperti biasa berangkat lagi dari rumah ke stasiun Shibuya untuk menunggu kepulangan tuannya. Akan tetapi, kali ini, diantara kerumunan orang-orang yang turun dari densha, tidak ada sang Profesor. Hachiko terus menunggu dan menunggu, berharap sosok sang Profesor akan menghampirinya, dan bersama-sama pulang ke rumah.

Siang tergantikan malam. Akan tetapi, Profesor yang ditunggu-tunggu, tidak kunjung datang. Hachiko pun pulang kembali ke rumah.

Keesokan harinya, Hachiko datang lagi ke stasiun Shibuya, menunggu kepulangan sang Profesor. Akan tetapi, lagi-lagi Profesor yang dinanti-nantikan tak kunjung tiba.

Esok harinya, Hachiko datang lagi ke stasiun dan menunggu. Esoknya lagi… dan esoknya lagi. Tidak peduli hamparan salju yang membeku di musim dingin, maupun udara musim panas yang lembab dan gerah, setiap harinya Hachiko pasti selalu datang menunggu.

Para penumpang yang mengetahui bahwa Hachiko sedang menunggu tuannya yang tidak akan pernah kembali lagi, merasa simpati dan mencoba memberitahukan, “Hachiko, tuanmu tidak akan pernah kembali lagi, tidak perlu menunggu lagi.”

Akan tetapi, Hachiko tetap menunggu. Tanpa pernah absen seharipun, selama hampir 11 tahun, Hachiko tetap menunggu…

Suatu pagi, seorang petugas stasiun menemukan tubuh seekor anjing yang sudah kaku meringkuk di pojokan jalan. Anjing itu telah menjadi mayat. Hachiko sudah mati. Kesetiaannya kepada tuannya pun terbawa sampai mati.

Warga yang mendengar kematian Hachiko pun berdatangan ke stasiun Shibuya. Mereka ingin menghormati untuk terakhir kalinya, menghormati arti dari sebuah kesetiaan yang kadang justru sulit ditemukan pada diri manusia.

Untuk mengenang Hachiko, warga pun membuat sebuah patung di dekat stasiun Shibuya. Jika Anda mengunjungi Shibuya, Anda akan menemukan patung Hachiko di sisi utara stasiun Shibuya saat ini.

Sampai saat ini pun, sekitaran patung Hachiko suka dijadikan tempat janjian bertemu oleh orang-orang ataupun sepasang kekasih. Mereka berharap akan ada kesetiaan seperti yang telah dicontohkan oleh Hachiko saat mereka menunggu maupun berjanji untuk datang.

Oleh orang Jepang, Hachiko dikenang dengan sebutan 忠犬ハチ公 (Chuuken Hachiko) yang berarti “Hachiko yang setia”.

(artikel ini pernah dimuat di majalah BVD — Juni 2009)

Patung Hachiko di dekat Stasiun Shibuya, Tokyo

FEM Vs. BEM — A Comparison in A Nut-Shell

(written by: Willy Yanto Wijaya)

Nowadays, in engineering designing purposes, the role of numerical modeling/ simulation is becoming more and more important. While experiments could cause higher cost or technical difficulties to do, numerical simulation could offer a high efficiency, faster and cheaper way for the designing cycles and development. However, in order to be reliable, simulation results must give relatively accurate results when compared with the actual physical system. Therefore, it is very important to have appropriate physical models of the system to be analyzed; then from these physical models, we derive the mathematical models as well as the numerical models of the system. The solutions of these mathematical models will then be refined and interpreted, then be compared with the actual physical mechanism/ phenomena for verification.

Many of physical phenomena in the nature could be described in differential equations. Often, a physical system could include a group of complex governing partial differential equations, which is difficult to be solved analytically. Therefore, we utilize the numerical methods such as FEM (Finite Element Method) and BEM (Boundary Element Method), which are essentially the numerical approaches to solve the Partial Differential Equations (PDE) of the physical system.

Basically, FEM is a method of dividing a physical system (with PDE characteristics) to be analyzed into smaller pieces (discrete elements). Each of these smaller pieces will have a simpler approximation of the solution. These local approximate solutions will then be put together to obtain a global approximate solution. FEM will include the determination of the discretized elements (cells/ mesh/ grids) as well as the basis function approximated in each cell. In FEM, the physical system (domain) will be thoroughly discretized, which will become one point of its differences with BEM. In elastic analysis, FEM has the root analogous with analytical Rayleigh-Ritz method which is derived from the energy principle.

On the other hand, in BEM, the discretization is restricted only to the system boundary. This BEM is derived through the discretization of an integral equation which is equivalent mathematically to the original PDE. This integral equation will then be defined at the boundary of the domain and it relates the boundary solutions to the solutions at points inside the domain.

Then, what are the advantages of BEM over FEM? Since in BEM, the discretization is done only at the boundary, it will result in more efficient computation and easier to be used compared with FEM. Besides, regarding its characteristics, BEM is also very suitable for modeling symmetrical problems as well as problems which involve infinite domains (such as the case of potential flow past an obstacle). BEM is also especially popular to solve Laplace and Helmholtz problems.

However, regarding its characteristics, BEM also poses several disadvantages compared with FEM. Since the formulation of integral equation can’t be done for all types of PDE, BEM is not so widely applicable compared with FEM. Besides, in the case of inhomogenous and non-symmetric or non-linier problems, fully populated system of equations will often occur in BEM thus making the storage requirement and computational time become increasing significantly. Further, BEM also requires more knowledge about the suitable fundamental solutions compared than if we use FEM for the simulation of the physical system.

Therefore, depending upon the type of physical systems we’d like to analyze, we could then decide which method is more favorable to be used.