Kawasaki Heavy Industries tampers with ship engine test data

Kawasaki Heavy Industries' data tampering draws attention as Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism conducts inspections.

On August 22, in view of the improper behavior of Japanese manufacturing giant Kawasaki Heavy Industries being accused of tampering with ship engine test data, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism conducted an on-site inspection of Kawasaki Heavy Industries' Kobe factory on the same day.

On August 21, Kawasaki Heavy Industries released news confirming that the company had such improper behavior, involving a total of 673 marine engines. Specifically, in the engine tests at the factory, in order to keep the fuel consumption rate within the allowable range of customers and reduce data deviations, the detection equipment was modified and the data was tampered with. Kawasaki Heavy Industries has apologized for this violation and said it will continue to investigate to prevent similar situations from happening again.

Recently, data fraud scandals of Japanese enterprises have emerged frequently. Last month, two subsidiaries of Hitachi Zosen Corporation were exposed for data fraud on the fuel consumption rate of large ship engines, involving more than 1,300 engines. On August 21, Japan's large heavy industry company IHI also submitted an investigation report on the problem of its subsidiary IHI Prime Mover Company tampering with fuel data of products such as marine engines to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It shows that since 1974, among the 9,321 engines whose records can be confirmed, 6,831 are involved in data tampering, accounting for more than 70% of the total.

The continuous scandals of data fraud in Japan's ship engine and automobile production and other related manufacturing industries highlight that some enterprises do not pay attention to consumer safety and product quality. Some Japanese scholars and legal professionals pointed out that these problems have a long history, and both the companies involved and the Japanese government are responsible. Since the 1990s, many Japanese enterprises have faced problems of rising production costs and declining profit margins. In order to maintain market share, reducing costs has become the primary goal. At the same time, many long-established manufacturing enterprises are facing problems such as aging equipment, and the pressure on enterprise operation has increased. Nakamura Tomohiko, a professor at the Faculty of Economics of Kobe International University in Japan, said that in the fierce international competition, Japanese enterprises have gradually lost their dominant positions. Some large enterprises still arrogantly maintain the illusion of their former confidence and ignore the adherence to industry rules.

This incident of Kawasaki Heavy Industries once again triggers public attention and doubts about Japanese manufacturing. How to rebuild consumers' trust in Japanese manufacturing has become an important issue faced by Japanese enterprises and the government. We will continue to pay attention to the inspection results of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan and the countermeasures of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and bring you further reports.