Friday, April 1, 2011

Soichiro Honda (founder of the Company HONDA)




Soichiro Honda (Honda Sō'ichirō 本田 宗一郎, 17 November 1906-5 August 1991) was a Japanese industrialist who was born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan.

Honda spent his childhood helping his father's bicycle repair business. At 15 years, with no formal education, Honda moved to Tokyo to find work. He worked an internship at a workshop in 1922, and after considering his job, he still worked there for six years before returning to his hometown to start his car repair business in 1928 at the age of 22 years.
Honda likes auto racing and created a record pace in 1936. He then suffered an injury in a severe accident - including broken bones in both wrists - and successfully persuaded his wife to quit racing. Honda then concentrate on his business, and in 1937 he moved into the manufacture of piston rings with built-Tokai Seiki Heavy Industry (IBTS, Tokai Seiki Heavy Industry). In 1948 he sold the IBTS to Toyota for 450,000 yen (roughly equal to 1 million U.S. dollars when measured in 2003).
In 1948 Honda began producing motorcycles as president of the Honda Corporation. Honda changed the company into a multinational corporation worth billions that produces best-selling motorcycle in the world.
Honda continues to serve as president of the company until he retired in 1973, then stayed on as director and was appointed "supreme adviser" in 1983. After retirement Honda busied himself with work related to the Honda Foundation. He died in 1991 due to liver failure.


 The journey of life and career

Soichiro Honda was born as the first son of a blacksmith named Gihei Honda, in 1906 in a small village called Komyo (now called Tenryu), Japan. He is not a formal education and not bright enough at school. But has the spirit and ideals that are very high.
Various literature mentions that the initial interest in the world begins at a very young age. In 1922 he was working at Art Shokai shop, did not pursue his father's skill as a blacksmith. The work was not directly related to the engine as he wants but as a power cleaning service while caring for the baby from the workshop owner, until the owner of the Honda garage to find the real talent. Six years later he is believed to open a branch of Art Shokai shop in Hamamatsu. workshop that was what opened the way next.
Initially, he felt that his garage is the only one in town, but soon he was faced with the fact that he is not alone. Soon came new competitors, but he has 2 steps to win the competition. First he received a repair shop that was rejected earlier by the other and both are working as quickly as possible so the customer does not take long to wait.
But Soichiro not the type who are satisfied with one success. He wants a lot of ideas that need to be realized. For example the idea of ​​making wheels with metal fingers replace the wooden fingers. His obsession membuatring piston when it was still difficult to obtain. Period, foreign-made perfect rare and difficult to make. Piston ring is what makes him go back to school at age 28 after struggling with a variety of experiments, piston ring made not fit his expectations. It took three years to realize this project piston rings. But during World War eventually became the military industrial suppliers.


After the war, he emerged the idea to install the engine on the bike that is the embryo of a motorcycle at a later date. Initially he took advantage of second hand machines of war. When homemade is sold, incredible community response. Wares to sell quickly pushed him to make a motorcycle.


Although successful motorcycle, the Honda was hit financial problems and even go bankrupt. He was a great inventor and mechanic, but not good at managing finances. This then brings with Takeo Fujisawa.
In the eyes of employees, famous Soichiro hard, even not infrequently he "played the hand" in the true sense. Working with Soichiro means there are two choices: move to another company or to learn with it. In addition to love the world of machinery, Soichiro himself crazy in the racing world. It's also what later became the key to success. From the racing arena, he is getting valuable input for product development. Even when newly entering the world of car production in 1962, only 2 years later, he immediately realized his dreams, falls in the arena of Formula 1. While in the arena of mass production, Honda spawned a very popular product markets, fuel-efficient and high-speed, which is a trade mark of Honda until now. When he retired in 1973, he handed over his command on Kiyoshi Kawashima. Soichiro died in 1991 at the age of 84 due to liver disease. Leaving his wife, Sachi, and a son and two daughters.



Post by : Wikipedia

No comments:

Post a Comment