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Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers

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Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers

#12

Post by yeureka »

VLM wrote: post #9
bshimmin wrote: post #6

I suspect many people who've ever idly looked at a zip will have noticed the letters "YKK" on them, and at least a few of those people will have made it to YKK's Wikipedia page, which is at least equally as informative as this article. I was a bit confounded by this sentence: "The precision necessary to craft a working bicycle chain or a smoothly meshing zipper was simply beyond us for all those prior millennia." Sur…

Roller bearings are old, but no one ever made a ball bearing until the bicycle era. They grew up together, and the first ball bearing equipped bicycles dominated competition about a century ago. Ball bearings were the carbon fiber of their era. I don't think ball mfgr technology of a level of roundness and surface quality suitable for ball bearings was compatible with ancient technology. The metalurgy would be highly…

Here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt-driven_bicycle

Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers

#14

Post by ndespres »

"YKK isn’t the kind of brand that markets to consumers. (Or seeks any kind of publicity: They declined to speak to me for this story.) You don’t buy your jeans and jackets by looking for their letters on that pull. Likewise, you almost certainly wouldn’t nix a garment purchase because the zipper isn’t YKK."

I guess I'm an exception here. If I want to wear a garment more than a few times I always check to make sure the zippers are YKK. If they skimped on the zippers, who knows what else they skimped on.

Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers

#15

Post by Xylakant »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #10

This just seems like a blatant submarine article [1] - anyone who upvoted want to share what they found interesting about it? [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I haven't upvoted but found it mildly interesting. Point that I found interesting were mostly:

* one company dominates the market for zippers by essentially capturing the middle ground of "good product with a wide range of options, reasonably priced and flawless execution"

* the example of a company dominating the market with what seems to counter the trend of outsourcing, producing everything in house, which means keeping the knowledge in and full control over the quality. A bit like Apple in that regard.

It's more like a lightweight snack for my brain than a full meal, useless but interesting knowlege, but I also read Now I Know. May or may not be a submarine, but made me check the zippers on my hoodie (YKK :)

Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers

#17

Post by VLM »

yeureka wrote: post #12
VLM wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roller bearings are old, but no one ever made a ball bearing until the bicycle era. They grew up together, and the first ball bearing equipped bicycles dominated competition about a century ago. Ball bearings were the carbon fiber of their era. I don't think ball mfgr technology of a level of roundness and surface quality suitable for ball bearings was compatible with ancient technology. The metalurgy would be highly…

Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt-driven_bicycle

Well, those look like kilodollar+ custom jobs. I guess I was thinking more stereotypical department store bike from China, where the mechanics aren't generally much of a priority so introducing something isn't very dangerous.

You can either shove innovation in at the top where R+D fits in the budget, or at the bottom where reliability is never assumed anyway.

Re: Why YKK? The Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers

#18

Post by tim333 »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #10

This just seems like a blatant submarine article [1] - anyone who upvoted want to share what they found interesting about it? [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I upvoted. I didn't know that stuff and found it interesting. There's something inspiring about a company dominating for years by dedicating to quality engineering rather than marketing bs. It didn't seem that 'submarine', given they "declined to speak to [the author] for this story". Though you never know.
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