Shinji Aoki / Chief Technology Officer
Perspectives from a life in leadership.
The latest essay
Japanese machine builders are under pressure to spin their software into digital subsidiaries with their own pay and culture. I argue the opposite: software that changes what a machine does belongs inside the machine's design authority, and its engineers should learn the machine before they write for it.
Read the essayJapanese machine builders are under pressure to spin their software into digital subsidiaries with their own pay and culture. I argue the opposite: software that changes what a machine does belongs inside the machine's design authority, and its engineers should learn the machine before they write for it.
Makers of precision machine tools usually treat export control as a compliance step before shipment. I argue that classification, relocation detection and service procedures are design decisions, and that the export officer belongs at the concept review.
Machine-tool makers want the data their machines produce in customers' plants. I argue that the price of that data is complete visibility for the owner, that production records should stay in the plant, and that makers should earn from avoided downtime rather than from the data itself.