HONDA The Power of Dreams

"I found one! Let's go after that boat!"

Running ahead in the direction the voice had indicated was a longtail with an engine painted red and white. That particular color combination meant that it was an ME, the engine developed by Honda in 1977. The voice came from Yoshinobu Yamaguchi, who had been involved in the engine's testing. He and his colleagues wanted to verify how their engine was being used, and whether or not there were any problems regarding its real world use. They were chasing the boat ahead of them, searching for the kind of information they could not obtain simply by analyzing data in the cold environs of a distant office. They had managed to make time during their business trip in order to travel up the Menam, all the while hoping they would make contact with users and obtain some feedback.

General purpose engines are used in a number of ways, meaning one cannot develop a truly applicable product unless its conditions of use are understood. Therefore, the ME engine's notable success was largely attributable to the efforts of a development staff that had traveled the world identifying its requirements. They had the ability to see things and analyze them from the standpoint of engineering. For example, during a visit to a retailer the staff would go to the repair area and search the drums and other waste containers filled with damaged engine parts. It was a noisy process going through the parts, but in the process they could usually find worn cylinders and other clues. They would examine the oil deposits and find them to be filled with dust, proving there was a need to improve the air cleaner. In this way, every damaged part would tell its own story, often inferring a great deal about the harshness of use and the environment surrounding it. Ultimately, improvements would be made and ideas for new models proposed. This indeed symbolizes the Honda's principle of "focusing on real-world, on-site operations while facing up to the challenges inherent in reaching a goal."

"It didn't matter that we couldn't speak the language," said Yamaguchi. "As engineers we knew what kinds of data we'd need to apply in our workstations. We simply had to watch the users as they brought their products in for repair. That way we could find out more about the problems they'd been having."

Yamaguchi held firmly to the belief that such a strategy was of paramount importance in the development of reliable, high-performance products. Each time he went abroad, he would make time available in which to study the market. He would journey through the dry cattle lands of Australia, visit busy rental shops in America, and wade into the rice paddies of Thailand. The world market was to Yamaguchi the very soul of research, and knowing something of his customers and their lives kindled in him a sense of ambition. It was the desire to build an engine that would satisfy the needs of each customer who bought it.

The ME engine, developed through a series of efforts intended to reduce its cost by half, was as much as 2,000 yen cheaper than other manufacturers' engines of the same class. The ME engine was also 10 percent cheaper than its rivals in the OEM market, where the price would vary according to the number of units ordered. Therefore, cost was the key selling point for general purpose engines, and everyone knew Honda, with its lower price point, had the advantage. As it turned out, though, a low price didn't benefit the company to the expected degree.

Yamaguchi himself also visited OEM companies in Japan, where he promoted the ME engine. However, he was on the receiving end of critical comments:

"Although the engine itself costs less," they would say, "it costs extra to install and test it in our machine. It also requires a lot of difficult, cumbersome work. We don't think we want your engine."

Others would say things like, "It's a great-looking product, but we cannot adopt it unless your products are designed to fit our machines with the absolute assurance there won't be any problems. That's what the other suppliers do."

Yamaguchi gave demonstrations amply proving the engine's performance, sometimes out in the snow and bitter cold. However, following a series of disappointments his once-abundant optimism had been left shattered in pieces. One comment he received from a manufacturer of construction machinery was a particularly heavy blow:

"Mr. Yamaguchi, it's true that a savings of 2,000 yen would add to our company's profits. However this saving wouldn't be passed on to the completed machines as a significant price advantage in the market. In other words, there would be no benefit for the customer who used the product to choose one with the Honda engine."

Those words had come as a shock to Yamaguchi. After all, he and his colleagues had studied regional markets with their own eyes, observing engine uses and identifying problems. He was confident they had created a price-competitive engine that met all the requirements.

"Our goal is to create an engine that satisfies the customers who use it," Yamaguchi would say. "I want to hear them say, 'It has to be Honda' the next time they purchase an engine. This feeling is shared by all the engineers at Honda."

This man, though, was saying their effort was not being appreciated by the consuming public. Moreover, price had nothing to do with it. As Yamaguchi said, "It was a tremendous shock to me as an engineer."

The ME engine was undoubtedly a success, though, and because of that Honda was able to compete with other manufacturers who were active in the same arena. Although their comments were rather harsh, those OEM companies would not have even looked at Honda engines if it had not been for the ME model. Still, Honda needed a decisive edge in order to lead the competition and make the customer say, "It has to be Honda."

One comment stood out in Yamaguchi's mind: "Don't depend on (price) difference alone, but make use of the product's uniqueness." This painful experience ultimately became the foundation for development of the ZE engine.

Most general purpose engines were in those days of the SV type. Accordingly, new OHV engines were expected to give the edge to Honda, since SV engines consumed more gasoline and oil, and were noisy and hot. In addition, they had shown themselves to be subject to problems in initial quality. The OHV configuration, on the other hand, was more powerful, economical, cleaner, quieter, and more durable. However, despite the OHV's obvious benefits, the SV configuration remained the mainstream in general purpose applications.

The reasons for that were as follows:

First, the OHV engine was larger because its valve had to be mounted above the cylinder. The OEM companies would not accept any engines exceeding their standard installation dimensions, which were for the most part based on SV engines. To find a market, a general purpose engine had to ensure "installation compatibility.

Second, the larger number of parts made the OHV heavier and more costly. Portability and economy are basic requirements in the world of general purpose engines. No matter how well one might perform, no engine would be accepted as a commercial product if the basic requirements - again, portability and economy - were not satisfied. For these reasons the OHV engine design had been studied by most manufacturers, but never seriously developed.

The ZE5 lawn mower engine would have a certain amount of latitude in dealing with these characteristics, because it was developed as part of a complete machine. However, the ZE01 general-purpose engine targeting OEM companies found itself up against a wall. The problems of size, weight, and cost necessitated engineering targets that had to be achieved in order to develop a successful product. Such problems also meant they would have to depart from common sense thinking with regard to general purpose engines.

The OHV configuration, while it offered key advantages, also necessitated more parts, a problem that was eventually solved through an exhaustive program of integration. For example, the fuel cock located between the fuel tank and carburetor serves the purpose of preventing fuel leaks during transportation and overhauling. With the ZE engine, the need for a separate fuel cock was eliminated through integration with the carburetor. Adopting the bonding technique of caulking three plates allowed the fuel tank to be mounted directly on the head, further contributing to a reduction in parts. As a result, the number of parts in the new OHV engine, which a normal design would have increased by about 20 percent, was reduced to a number even lower than found in the ME engine.

A key point in the reduction of parts, in addition to the effective ideas incorporated through new mechanisms, was that the development team had achieved such a thorough understanding of the ways general-purpose engines were used. They not only consolidated the parts from an engineering perspective, but also distinguished the necessary parts from unnecessary ones based on product usage. Their experience in field-testing had been put to maximum use. The 20 percent reduction in parts had undoubtedly led to a drop in cost, but more importantly doing so did not sacrifice the functionality of the engine. This was a real advantage for the ZE engine.

Various ideas had been adopted in order to make the OHV engine easier to handle, one such innovation being the mechanical decompression mechanism. An OHV engine offers a better compression ratio due to higher fuel-combustion efficiency. However, this leads to higher pressure, so greater force is required to start the engine. Therefore, a decompression mechanism was added in order to reduce the starting pressure. During the mechanism's development several different ideas were attempted and abandoned, since it was essential that the team avoid any patent infringements. Their effort finally led to the establishment of a proprietary Honda technology.