1"We want to gain the strength and ideas of not only a few Japanese scientists, but of scientists from all over the world," says William Everitt, a vice president of the Kyocera International unit of Japan's Kyocera Corp. [In 1984] Kyocera, which makes computers, cameras and ceramic components for a range of products, announced it would open its first basic research center outside Japan ... in Vancouver, Washington.
"The risk of being blind-sided by new technology that could revolutionize the marketplace is going up all the time," says Arden L. Bement Jr., the vice president of technical resources for TRW Inc., a conglomerate that makes products ranging from satellites to seat belts. "You have to look outside your own alligator pit to see what's happening at the fringes of the swamp."
Sweden-based Ericsson Group intends not to miss out on new developments. In 1981, the maker of telecommunications equipment opened a research center in Garden Grove, California; the facility is now a joint venture with Honeywell Inc. [In 1984] Ericsson opened another facility in Richardson, Texas, to develop new telephone switching systems .
. . . Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., which has been manufacturing in the
U.S. since 1979, opened its first U.S. research center in North Carolina. It will seek advances in fiber optics and other telecommunications fields .. .. Nippondenso Co., which makes auto parts, [planned to] open a technical center near Detroit to specialize in new electronics and ceramics technologies for cars.
While companies everywhere are broadening their research activities, the trend may be most dramatic for U.S. businesses. With the notable exception of International Business Machines Corp., which began doing research in 1956, many American companies didn't systematically seek new technology overseas because they saw little need to. But they are coming to see virtues in foreign technology. (After all, foreign citizens got an estimated 43% of U.S. patents in 1983, according to the National Science Foundation, up from only 23% in 1965.) Following are examples of U.S. companies that are conducting research and product development of an increasingly international scale.
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