It began with a sports car

With a limited worldwide production of only 500, sales of the Lexus LFA supercar began in 2009. Yamaha Motor cooperated in the development of this model’s V10 engine (1LR-GUE/cover photo) and then manufactured it in a special, state-of-the-art facility with the most stringent quality control standards and employing a cell manufacturing process in which a single expert technician assembles the entire engine. This month we trace the roots of Yamaha’s automobile engine technology in world-class supercars and the more than five decades behind our automobile-related business.

Despair and hope in Europe

In 1959, two Yamaha Motor engineers departed for Europe with a single command from the company’s founding president, Genichi Kawakami: “Tour the advanced industrial nations in search of the next product to follow our motorcycles.” Europe would prove to be a rude awakening for the engineers. As they visited countless industrial equipment and automobile makers, they were overwhelmed at every turn by the technological advancement and manufacturing facilities of European companies.“At times, we even felt despair seeing how far behind the Japanese industry was,” they would later say. However, they also found seeds of hope on their journey when they saw the skilled craftsmen at work in the factories of companies like Pininfarina in Italy and Porsche in Germany. “While we can’t match these large mass-production manufacturing facilities,” they thought, “if it’s a sports car produced in smaller lots by skilled raftsmen, we could make it work.” “These sports car brands excel at engineering and design technology.

About Yamaha Robotics SMT Section
Yamaha Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Section is a subdivision of Yamaha Motor Robotics Business Unit in Yamaha Motor Corporation. Yamaha surface mount equipment is highly acclaimed in the market for their “module concept” that enables them to keep pace with the trend toward smaller and more diverse electric/electronic parts being mounted on circuit boards.

Yamaha SMT Section has created a strong business in the surface mount industry that enables design and engineering, manufacture, sales and service to be conducted in one comprehensive system. Furthermore, the Company has used its core technologies in the areas of servo-motor control and image recognition technology for vision (camera) systems to develop solder paste printers, 3D solder paste inspection, 3D PCB inspection machines, flip chip hybrid placers and dispensers. This allows Yamaha SMT Section to offer a full line of machines for electric/electronic parts mounting and propose optimum production-line makeup to answer the diversifying needs of today’s manufacturers.

Yamaha SMT Section has sales and service offices in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Europe and North America provide a truly global sales and service network that will safeguard best in class on-site sales & service support for clients.

www.yamaha-motor-im.eu

Contact info

Oumayma Grad
Marketing Communications Manager

Hansemannstraße 12
41468 Neuss
Germany

Office: +49 2131 2013 538
Mobile: +49 1517 0233 297
Fax: +49 2131 2013 550
Email: oumayma.grad@yamaha-motor.de
Web: www.yamaha-motor-im.eu