5 Mitutoyo executive's arrested

Yes, sales of calipers and mics have dropped off in the West have dropped off a bit. I wonder how their sales are in China.

"Those centrifuges were for making big strawberry daiquiries! Quaddifi loves those!"

-gc

Gene Cash wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@cfl.rr.com:

While not specificlly stated, the Zippe centrifuge is what they are referring to.

At a family reunion on Saturday I over heard a Mitutoyo engineer and my wife [ another engineer who has just been through export compliance training at her place of employment] were talking.

They seemed to be focussing on "blacklisted shipping companies".

You aren't located around Aurora (Mit's US HQ), are you Clark? I was there all last week.

-- Ed Jimtress

I live with a gal whose job it is to document this exact software. The software is capable of measuring to a precision which would be restricted, but the issue is that the software was shipped with machines which aren't capable of that level of precision. So nobody wound up with a machine which can do super-precise measurement, nobody that wasn't supposed to. No one alleges that anyone did. But they are very upset that the precision piece of the software wasn't unbundled. It is now.

The other piece, as I understand it, is that there was some misreporting of capability at some point somewhere down the line. Mitutoyo itself didn't sell anthing restricted to someone they shouldn't have, but some shady middleman did.

One interesting thing is that nobody's mentioning how Mitutoyo's stock is being affected. It isn't - the company is private. The other interesting thing is that Mitutoyo was started with the intent to raise money to further worldwide Buddhism. 10% of their profits to this day go to this goal.

I could be wrong, but I think Mitutoyo is getting pretty much of a bad rap on this one. I think they're a pretty clean, moral company.

Grant Erwin Kirkland, Washington

They were my client for six or seven years. My own experience is exactly what you describe: the most principled, moral bunch of executives I ever met.

But my connection with them ended in the early '90s, so I can't speak for them now.

-- Ed Huntress

I was on Bainbridge Island Saturday. I rowed from Battle point to the head waters of Fletcher's Bay and back.

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:49:13 -0700, Clark Magnuson scribed:

Seem as much. I think the question is deeper.

If the company systematically designed their software to 'dumb up' for export to get around MITI and then be able to unlock the code for enhanced functions and accuracy, it seems a breach on many levels...

Not just a rouge engineer or coder.

I have a feeling that quite a few took hand in this, but that will be for the Japanese courts to determine.

Best,

Freddie

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:16:12 -0700, Grant Erwin scribed:

Grant:

Could not agree with you more!

We are very close to Mitutoyo, albeit competitors, but they are the right kind to have. A great group of people and a stand up company. We deal with them on many levels, both business-wise and personal and have a very long history with the company.

I agree on the idea that some shady guys steered these exports the way they did, but also hope there was no "wink" and "nod" from the higher ground. I reckon it was some bad affiliations that brought this to light.

As you said, they are a very clean company, great for the industry and deliver exceptional products to those they service.

Fred