loomberg BusinessWeek, Oct 23, 2017 (II)

choi

Joshua Hunt, Robots All the Way Down; Why Fanuc, a secretive Japanese factory-automation company, might be the most important manufacturer in the world. (one of the 3 feature stories)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/f ... reshaping-the-world

Note:
(a) "The headquarters of Fanuc sit in the shadow of Mt Fuji, on a sprawling, secluded campus of 22 windowless factories and dozens of office buildings. The grounds approach the lower slopes of Japan's most famous peak, encircled by a dense forest that Fanuc's founding CEO, Seiuemon INABA 稲葉 清右衛門 [sei 清; u 右; both Chinese pronunciations], planted decades ago to shield the company's operations from prying eyes—an example of the preoccupation with secrecy that once led Fortune to compare him to a bond villain.  Since taking over as chairman and chief executive officer in 2003, Inaba's son, Yoshiharu [稲葉] 善治, has continued the tradition of privacy. He takes questions from investors only twice a year, wearing a blazer in the lemon yellow the company uses to brand [robots, factories, employees’ uniforms, and company cars] that shuttle engineers and executives around the neighboring village of Oshino [山梨県南都留郡] 忍野村 [Fanuc headquarters is in the village; 山梨県 is a western neighbor of Tōkyo].   The elder Inaba once explained this uncharacteristically loud touch by calling yellow 'the emperor's color.' ['中国の故事では黄色は皇帝の色': SME Library 25] It also helps security guards quickly identify outsiders. In Seiuemon's day, the fear was industrial espionage; today's spies are more likely to be working for investors or stock analysts who want to peek behind the lemon curtain for insight into everything from global automobile manufacturing to iPhone orders. * * * Keisuke FUJII 広報部長 藤井 敬介 [広報 = publicity, public relations], who manages public relations for Fanuc Ltd, isn't scheduled to meet me, having already offered the expected 'no comment' * * * [w]hen I arrive unannounced at the security checkpoint * * * most [FANUC robots] are bound for China.  Automation has been rising over the past decade there, partly because, as wages and living standards have risen, workers have proved less willing to perform dangerous, monotonous tasks, and partly because Chinese manufacturers are seeking the same efficiencies as their overseas counterparts. More and more, it's Fanuc's industrial robots that assemble and paint automobiles in China, construct complex motors, and make injection-molded parts and electrical components. At pharmaceutical companies, Fanuc's sorting robots categorize and package pills [also working in Amazon.com Inc's massive warehouses]. At food-packaging facilities, they slice, squirt, and wrap edibles.  King of them all is the Robodrill, which plays first violin [not a real violin, but a metaphor for playing a role] in one of the great symphonies of modern production: machining the metal casing for Apple Inc's iPhones. In the fiscal year surrounding the 2010 introduction of the iPhone 4, the first to use an all-metal casing, Robodrill sales more than doubled.  Since then, this relationship has become so chummy that, based solely on strong first-quarter Robodrill sales, analysts discounted early rumors the iPhone 8 would eschew metal casing for front-and-back glass panels. Instead, the recent iPhone 8 release and coming iPhone X launch spurred higher Robodrill sales to Apple's manufacturers in China * * * The overarching pattern is less a reversal of the 20th century's offshore manufacturing boom than an unraveling, with jobs vanishing from developing and developed nations alike.  Amid the tumult, there's one clear winner: the $50 billion company that controls most of the world's market for factory automation and industrial robotics."

Press release: The future is here: iPhone X. Apple, Sept 12, 2017
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2 ... e-is-here-iphone-x/
("iPhone X introduces a revolutionary design with a stunning all-screen display that precisely follows the curve of the device, clear to the elegantly rounded corners. The all-glass front and back feature the most durable glass ever in a smartphone in silver or space gray, while a highly polished, surgical-grade stainless steel band seamlessly wraps around and reinforces iPhone X")

choi

(b) In 1955, Fujitsū Ltd [founded 1935], the world's third [sic; should be second]-oldest information technology company after International Business Machines Corp [4 companies merged in 1911 to form one that in 1924 called itself International Business Machines] and Hewlett-Packard Co [1939], tapped Seiuemon Inaba, who was then a young engineer, to lead a new subsidiary dedicated to the field of numerical control. This nascent form of automation involved sending instructions encoded into punched or magnetic tape to motors that controlled the movement of tools, effectively creating programmable versions of the lathes, presses, and milling machines you might find in shop class.
From the beginning, Inaba spent heavily on research and development without concern for dividends—a corporate mission he described as 'walking the narrow path.' But within three years, he and his team of 500 employees were shipping Fujitsu's first numerical-control machine to Makino Milling Machine Co 株式会社牧野フライス製作所. In 1972, Fujitsu-Fanuc Ltd—the 'Fanuc' an acronym for Fuji Automatic NUmerical Control—was founded as a separate entity, with Inaba in charge.  The next phase of global manufacturing, he believed, would be computer numerical control, which relied on a standard programming language. At the time, the 10 largest CNC companies in the world were based in the US, but within a few years Fanuc had overtaken them all. * * * The next step for Inaba was to take Fanuc’s CNC systems and make them networkable. "
(i) "walking the narrow path"

In Japanese websites, there are two versions:
(A) "(研究開発をどう考えるかI）研究開発の狭い道"

My translation: Asked, "What do you think of research and development?" [he said:] the narrow path of R&D
(B) "狭い路（みち）を真っ直ぐに" or " 狭い路（みち）を真っすぐに"

My translation: straight to the narrow path of R&D"

Japanese-English dictionary:
* まっすぐ 《真っ直ぐ(P); 真っすぐ》 (adv): "straight (ahead); direct"
* michi 道(P); 途; 路; 径 【みち】 (n): "road; street; way; path; course; route"
(ii)
(A) Milling. YouTube,com, published by Milling & Machining Centers, SME, on June 19, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef59DogwLrI
("Milling is a highly versatile machining process that uses rotating, multi-edge cutters to generate flat and contoured surfaces")
(B) milling cutter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milling_cutter
(photos)
is an instrument to do the milling
(C) SME (society)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SME_(society)

(c) GMFanuc Robotics Corp's "industrial robots 'frequently gave cockeyed instructions, ordering up the wrong [car] bumpers' * * * [Fanuc was] becoming in 1988 the world’s largest supplier of industrial robots. * * *Fanuc manages to offer these savings [10% cheaper than competitors: say, Kuka of Germany] while maintaining 40 percent operating profit margins [despite, or perhaps because of] centralized production in Japan * * * Between the almost 4 million CNC systems and half-million or so industrial robots it has installed around the world, Fanuc has captured about one-quarter of the global market, making it the industry leader over competitors such as Yaskawa Motoman and ABB Robotics in Germany, each of which has about 300,000 industrial robots installed globally. Fanuc's Robodrills now command an 80 percent share of the market for smartphone manufacturing robots. * * * Sales to China amounted to about 55 percent of the $5 billion Fanuc's automation unit generated in the fiscal year ended March 2017. * * * [Preferred Networks Inc's (company has no Japanese name, specializes in AI)] co-founder and CEO, Toru NISHIKAWA 西川 徹"

cockeyed (adj): "slightly crazy"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cockeyed