Made in Japan who likes to make additive products

It is mentioned that Made in Japan always gives people the impression of exquisite design, high quality and high popularity. Not only in Asian countries, but Japanese products are also well-known in the international market. In the early days when there were not many imported products from Japan, it was rare for relatives and friends to travel or travel to Japan, and they would always ask them to bring some Made in Japan products back to China. I am often asked for help myself, because of the favor, I usually help for free, and sometimes even pay for the loss of Japanese currency exchange. Sometimes I encounter people who have no self-control to purchase requests. Not only do the things I want to buy are many and miscellaneous, but they are even limited items. As time goes by, I don’t want anyone to know about it when I go abroad. XD

The Japanese have a great feature in designing and manufacturing products, and they like to make additive products . What is addition, my own understanding is that a product will gradually add more additional functions or value each time it is updated and iterated.

For example, the Japanese invented the electric cooker in the 1950s. At that time, the structure was very simple. Water was added to the outer pot to control the heating time. When the water in the outer pot evaporated, the heating was stopped, and the rice in the inner pot was cooked. . If the text description is not easy to understand, just look at the Datong electric cooker , which still maintains this mechanical structure. On the other hand, after countless additions, modern Japanese electric cookers have added various functional designs in addition to the most basic cooking functions. Just grab a Zojirushi electric cooker that's on sale on Amazon Japan and see how many functions it has. At a glance, it is dazzling, and there are too many modes for people to choose from. According to different types of rice, there are various cooking modes that are slightly different, and it can also cook five-grain rice, sushi rice, oil rice, and porridge.

Before the electric cooker was invented, people could only cook rice manually, and they had to pay attention to the firepower at all times, and they had to work hard to cook a good pot of rice. Since Toshiba launched the first successfully commercialized electric cooker, everyone is rushing to buy it. Don't worry about the electric cooker manufactured by no one buying it, just try to produce it to meet the purchase demand in the market. Until the market is saturated with competing products, manufacturers need to think about finding other ways to break through. And the Japanese have always been proud of their skills, the old way of improving and adding additional functions has been carried forward again. Everyone competes to develop additional functions of electric cookers to create differentiation. The major Japanese home appliance manufacturers were among the best, not only able to continue to attract consumers to buy, but also to increase their prices.

However, when the exclusive function of each company is no longer exclusive, and all factories can produce it, the proud addition skills of Japanese manufacturers have gradually disappeared. East Asian countries take cost reduction as their biggest weapon and launch products that are cheaper but can maintain similar functions, and Japan's status as a big home appliance country begins to shake.

It's not that it's not good to make additive products, but it's better to study product features and user features more deeply to determine the development direction. There must be products that are suitable for addition and products that are not. Conversely, there are times when addition is suitable, and there are times when subtraction is suitable. Take the refrigerator as an example, the most basic feature of the refrigerator, refrigerated or frozen food.

Additions are made according to the usage characteristics of some countries. Taking Japan as an example, a special area for ice making is added, because Japanese people are used to drinking iced drinks and eating plain noodles in summer. Freezing function, because I like to eat sashimi and other fresh food.

Subtracting the usage characteristics of some countries, taking China as an example, can cancel the special area for ice making, because Chinese people like to drink hot water, and this function in the refrigerator is a waste of space.

It is a pity that the design of some products in Japan still cannot get rid of inertial thinking, and still believes that the more functions are added, the higher the price even if consumers do not use them. As everyone knows, times have changed, and price increases are likely to affect sales.

The following refrigerator features make one wonder if this is necessary? The advertisement request is to use a top plate with a heat resistance of 100°C in order to cope with the microwave oven being placed on the refrigerator. There are indeed many Japanese people who put their microwave ovens on the refrigerator, but I don't know of any microwave ovens that emit 100°C heat.

In addition, this refrigerator has made a lot of additions, so that the price has also increased, reaching 69,800 yen. For comparison, find the same size Iris Ohyama refrigerator, which is suitable for single people. This refrigerator embodies the concept of subtraction, discards redundant functions, focuses on refrigeration and increases freezer space, and can move home for only 38,680 yen.

In my previous article I introduced Iris Ohyama, a company that is very good at making subtractive products in home appliances. Friends who are interested in this company can click here to read. (My own website: Behind-the-scenes observation in Japan - IRIS OHYAMA, who fully utilizes "crisis is a turning point" )

Although only Japanese home appliance products are listed here, in fact, most of the Japanese manufacturing industries have such a tendency. Careful friends will definitely find similar examples if they observe carefully.

2022/02/26 posted.

Original link to Japan behind-the-scenes observation