MILESTONE

Celebrating 60 years in Japan

In October, Cummins Japan celebrated 60 years of business.

To celebrate the milestone, Japanese employees joined a Zoom celebration led by Eric Waters, GM for DBU Japan, and Kei Sato, GM for EBU Japan. Pre-recorded Zoom messages from Peter Jensen-Muir, Executive Managing Director – Asia Pacific DBU, Mark R. Firth, President, Isuzu Cummins Powertrain Partnership, and Monika Gietz, Communication Manager, Asia Pacific, were played during the ceremony.

Peter Jensen-Muir, Executive Managing Director - Asia Pacific DBU  Sixty years is an amazing achievement. Today, we work with great partners across Japan and we

couldn’t have achieved this without the work from every one of you. We have even bigger potential now than ever before, as many existing and new customers and partners look to Cummins for their power solutions as they reduce their own

investments in vertically integrated solutions. 

Mark R. Firth, President, Isuzu Cummins Powertrain Partnership  We should really feel proud that we’ve grown our business in 60 years to what it is today and

excited that we have current and future customers and partners wanting to grow their business with Cummins in Japan in the next few years. It is a really exciting time for us in Japan and I expect the

business to grow quickly through the next decade. 

Monika Gietz, Communication Manager, Asia Pacific  Congratulations to Cummins Japan for reaching 60 years of business. Let’s celebrate this huge

milestone with sake. Wishing you prosperity, health

and success for the coming years.  The team celebrated the milestone with black keep cups.

History of Cummins Japan

The relationship between Cummins and Japan began in the 1950s when Power Development (a public corporation) was involved in building large-scale dams. At the time, Marunouchi’s US trading company Frazar International was Cummins’ agent. In the late 1950s, the US Forces Japan Procurement Headquarters in Yokohama announced a US-funded plan to supply Japanese military trucks to south-east Asian countries free as US military aid. Tens of thousands of trucks were scheduled to be purchased and Japanese truck manufacturers (like Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Hino) were excited. Komatsu Corporation, already a top construction machinery manufacturer in Japan, saw the military truck procurement plan as a great opportunity and decided to bid for it, but Komatsu’s diesel engine at the time was for construction machinery – medium speed with durability and reliability problems. Japan was unable to import engines (there was an extreme shortage of foreign currency) and the only way was to licence production in Japan. Cummins was interested in Komatsu’s offer and decided to cooperate, starting with the shipment of about 40 Cummins engines (743 cubic inches, 12 litres, 220 horsepower, 2100 rpm naturally aspirated). Komatsu built a prototype truck and tested it in large numbers at the base of Mt Fuji. More than 10 Cummins engineers came to Japan and the test results were excellent. The project lasted about two years, but a major US policy change meant the military truck procurement program ended in about 1960.

At the time, Caterpillar, the world’s largest construction machinery manufacturer, established Caterpillar Mitsubishi in cooperation with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to produce Caterpillar bulldozers in Japan. As a result, an engine licence agreement was signed between Cummins and Komatsu in 1961, and Komatsu Cummins Co Ltd established as a 50/50 joint venture, capitalised at ¥40 million. Under the licence agreement, Komatsu produced the NH series engines in Japan and most were loaded on Komatsu bulldozers. Komatsu sold other single-unit engines to Japanese OEMs. Cummins’ business in Japan increased, so in 1961, the Japanese branch of Cummins Diesel Sales Corporation (formerly known as Cummins North Asia CNA) was established and the overall business of Cummins was coordinated with Komatsu. Komatsu spent about three years manufacturing the first prototype of a domestically produced Cummins engine (which was then not authorised to import components). Since then, NH series (four and six cylinder NH180-180HP, NH220-220HP, NRTO-335HP with turbo) engines have been carried on Komatsu bulldozers and exported overseas. The NH series was called small bore NH (5-1/4 inch) at Cummins, but the mainstream production of Cummins changed to large bore NH (5-1/2 inch, exhaust capacity six cylinders, 14 litres), so the large bore NH was licensed in 1969. The licensed production continued until the mid-1980s when Komatsu’s total production platform was close to 100,000 units. In the 1970s, Cummins commissioned Komatsu to produce the main components (block, head and connecting rod) of the thendeveloped K-series engine (6x6 inch bore stroke, 19 litre exhaust capacity, 100 HP 2100 rpm per cylinder). Later, a 12-cylinder version of the K-series was developed. The K6 and K12 series engines were manufactured at Cummins’ Charleston Avenue (USA) and Daventry (UK) factories respectively. Sales of other Cummins engines through Komatsu Cummins Sales were mainly to Japanese companies, Tokyu, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kobe Steel Works (which then manufactured P&H cranes) and Kimco (which manufactured wheel loaders in a joint venture between Komatsu and International Harvester in the US). The horizontal engines (NHH220, NHHRS, NHHRTO) for diesel car floors were manufactured by Komatsu, as were small bore NH, but all were manufactured in Columbus because they were horizontal.

Joint venture dissolved

Steel car manufacturers used a lot of Cummins for replacement locomotives and diesel cars with large engines and exported most overseas.

Kimco imported a large number of smaller Columbus-made C-series engines and smaller engines from Darlington factories in Britain. In the late 1970s, Komatsu Cummins had nearly 100 employees. In the 1980s, Komatsu grew and demand for its engines became complex and varied. It was often difficult to remodel licensed Cummins engines to his own liking. As a result, Komatsu Cummins Sales, a joint venture, was dissolved and in 1985, Komatsu’s 50% stake was purchased. The company name changed to Cummins Diesel Co Ltd to import and sell Cummins engines and services. The main suppliers were railway vehicle and construction machinery manufacturers, like Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Hitachi Construction Machinery and the privatised JNR, namely JR East Sea and JR East. The main successful engines were large bore NH horizontals and, in the next few years, JR East Sea’s replacement engines and existing diesel cars became 100% Cummins, and more than half of JR East’s replacement engines became Cummins. Nearly 1,000 Cummins engines now operated on JR East Sea and JR East, the largest in the world for Cummins horizontal engines. Hitachi’s large power shovels at the time were all equipped with Cummins large engines, and the largest one was equipped with two Cummins KV12 series engines (1200HP-2100RPM). In the field of power shovels, Hitachi Engineering & Construction Co Ltd was selling much larger products worldwide than Komatsu. In the mid-1980s, Cummins Diesel Co Ltd and Cummins Japan branch moved to an independent building in Shin-Tomimachi. While the licence agreement between Cummins and Komatsu ended in the mid-1980s, the relationship remained. The supply of K-engine components from Komatsu to Cummins continued, while Komatsu required large-scale Cummins engines (mainly KV12 series engines) loaded into large dump trucks (120 tonnes).

Engine manufacturers

In the 1990s, global emissions regulations became stricter, and research and development required a huge amount of money, which increased the burden on engine manufacturers. That meant Cummins, the world’s largest diesel engine maker, had an advantage over other companies, and manufacturers like Komatsu, which produced a relatively small amount of their own engines, were disadvantaged. Against that background, Komatsu stopped making some of its engines and decided to use Cummins engines. After more than two years of negotiations, Komatsu established a 50/50 joint venture with Komatsu in 1993.

The Cummins Cylinder Engine B-Series Kongjin would be installed on Komatsu’s construction machinery and the single-unit engine sales conducted by Cummins. At the same time, Cummins Komatsu Engine was established in Seymour, Indiana, and Komatsu’s basic design of 12 cylinders 30 litres were built on the Jenjin with a Cummins fee system, to be sold worldwide by Cummins. The Japanese branch of Cummins and Cummins Diesel Co Ltd merged in 2002 to become a corporation. In 2015, a parts distribution centre, dealer training centre and Komatsu logistics centre was established. In 2018, another milestone was achieved when Cummins Inc (NYSE: CMI) and Isuzu Motors Ltd announced a step forward in their partnership by entering into the Isuzu Cummins Powertrain Partnership agreement. The agreement formalised a business structure for the two companies to evaluate and conduct opportunities to jointly develop and bring new diesel and diesel-based powertrains to global markets. Through the Powertrain Partnership, Isuzu and Cummins share the commitment to leverage both companies’ technical strengths to develop market-leading architectures for customers globally. Cummins and Isuzu committed to form an alliance board and assign a team of dedicated individuals from each company to continue exploring potential opportunities in product technology development, procurement and manufacturing.