Page 1 of 1

You Gotta Beef Wit Dat?

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:21 pm
by Rope-Pusher
Image
Kobe Steel may have faked data on metal, engines, tires
Image
Customers have been informed about the issue, which has been resolved, Tokyo-based spokeswoman Eimi Hamano said, declining to provide details. Kobe Steel falsified quality certification data for steel wire used in auto engines and to strengthen tires, the Nikkei newspaper reported Friday.

The company’s disclosures had up until now dealt with aluminum, copper and iron ore products used in everything from cars to computer hard drives to Japan’s iconic bullet trains, although there haven’t been any reports of products being recalled or safety concerns raised.

The deepening scandal "suggests that this is company culture, not just the actions of a few rogue employees," said Alexander Robert Medd, managing director at Bucephalus Research Partnership in Hong Kong. The question to be resolved is "were they trying to save money or just unable to produce the right spec in the right quantities," he said.

Kobe revealed on Sunday that it had fudged data on the strength and durability of metals supplied to as many as 200 customers around the world, including Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors and space rocket-maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

Re: You Gotta Beef Wit Dat?

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:43 pm
by Bill B
Probably just trying to cut corners to sqeeze out some more profit which seems to be the order of the day. VW cut a few corners with their diesel emission scandal, paid a fine or Two and life goes on for them.

Re: You Gotta Beef Wit Dat?

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:15 pm
by IMBoring25
Bill B wrote:Probably just trying to cut corners to sqeeze out some more profit which seems to be the order of the day. VW cut a few corners with their diesel emission scandal, paid a fine or Two and life goes on for them.
This is different and definitively not OK.

The diesel scandal skirted a regulatory requirement of arguable benefit to society at large.

This one means they're delivering materials that don't meet the structural performance specified for the applications. There are a lot of potential safety-related single points of failure in automobiles, particularly in the steering, suspension, and braking systems. Even more to the point, MHI is a Boeing supplier for commercial aircraft subassemblies.

Re: You Gotta Beef Wit Dat?

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:27 am
by Rope-Pusher
IMBoring25 wrote:
Bill B wrote:Probably just trying to cut corners to sqeeze out some more profit which seems to be the order of the day. VW cut a few corners with their diesel emission scandal, paid a fine or Two and life goes on for them.
This is different and definitively not OK.

The diesel scandal skirted a regulatory requirement of arguable benefit to society at large.
We can argue about how arguable those benefits to society are, but VW was cheating and pocketing the profits that came from not actually meeting the emission regulations while poor little Mazda was trying and trying to come out with a diesel engine for the North American market and just couldn't bring it to market at a price that would be competitive with VW's offerings. Roolz is roolz and VW felt no moral compunction toward meeting the emission regulations as a matter of social responsibility for limiting pollution or in line with fairly competing as a business. It goes way beyond delaying a program until they could pump some money into R&D in order to find a way to meet the requirements. They gave up trying to meet the roolz for nearly a decade and would likely have continued to the end of time if they hadn't gotten caught.

Eye spose that in a number of years, one, or two, might be able to look back at deaths and dismemberments associated with the Kobe Metals quality scandal and compare that with lung cancer, eye cancer, nose cancer, etc. from excessive VW diesel emissions and we can all sit around the campfire, drinking some beers and holding sticks over the fire, roasting the testicals of the executives from Kobe Metals or VW (or both!).