Makita MT Series to replace Maktec?
Makita has launched a replacement for its off-brand Maktec range of power tools under Makita MT Series. It’s already being launched in the Australia.
When will Makita MT Series will be launched in Malaysia?
“Japanese-based power tool company Makita has launched a replacement for its off-brand Maktec range of power tools. The new diffusion brand, named “the Makita MT Series”, signals a change of market strategy at what has been one of the world’s best tool design/manufacturing companies. It is also inline with what seems to be a more general shift in the overall cordless power tool market.
“Cordless” is a key term, as one of the major differences between Maktec and the MT series is that the latter (unlike the former) will include a range of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery-powered tools. (Maktec did have one cordless tool, the Nickel-Cadmium battery-powered MT065SK2 drill.) Not only are they Li-ion cordless, but they also make use of standard Makita 18-volt 1.3 amp-hour batteries and chargers, showing integration into the main Makita line of tools.
The core idea behind Maktec – and behind the new MT Series – is a sound one. It relates both to market needs and the costs associated with the design and manufacturing of tools.
At the end of any durable product’s manufacturing run, the manufacturing company finds itself left with a number of valuable assets. There is the design itself, of course, but also the hard manufacturing assets used in production which, with the change of product, no longer have much residual worth. Added to that are the “soft” manufacturing assets.
Typically, during manufacturing a number of lessons are learned, both in how to make a product a little better, and how to cut costs in numerous small ways, which can add up to considerable efficiencies.
Maktec was likely initially conceived as a means of giving those assets a “second life”. Power tools which had been superseded by newer and better designs, but which were still competitive against the average tools in the market, could be produced using some of the existing assets.
Costs were cut by the reduced asset expense required, and also by shifting production from Makita’s higher operating cost factories in Japan to its less expensive resources in mainland China. That worked out well, because the Japanese factories excel at the Japanese manufacturing art of continuous improvement.
By the time manufacturing shifted to the purely cost-focused factories in China, the processes were highly refined. This resulted in an ideal blending of a higher-cost, high-development environment, and lower-cost, low-development manufacture.
There is something in this of the Japanese concept of “shibui”. On the surface is what seems a quite usual re-use of older assets. Underlying it, however, is a balancing of the strengths and weaknesses of the different resources in the company.”
You may read the full article here.
The looks of some of the Makita MT Series products
Full Makita MT Series products range -> http://www.makita.com.au/products/category/mt-series