by Shinichi Yano
(From the Chapter one summary in New Lanchester Strategy Volume 1
©1995 Lanchester Press Inc.)
The Lanchester Strategy is based on the Lanchester Laws, discovered by the
British aeronautical engineer, F. W. Lanchester.
Lanchester was born on October 23, 1868, in London. He graduated from the
Royal College of Science. At the age of 28, he built England's first gasoline-powered
automobile. At 31, he founded a consulting firm, the Lanchester Car Company.
He is responsible for many significant inventions in the automobile industry.
Lanchester invented disc brakes, power steering, four wheel drive, fuel
injection, low voltage ignition, and static and dynamic balancing of engines
among the almost 400 patents in his name.
Subsequently he was a member of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics,
and a technical advisor to the Daimler motor car company. He was also a
member of the British Academy, a Doctor of Laws, and a honorary member of
the Royal Aeronautical Society. Lanchester's career ended on March 8, 1946,
with his death in Birmingham.
His paper entitled "The Theory of Rotation and Lift," and
a two-volume treatise on aerodynamics, "Aerial Flight,"
were published in 1907. These works were major contributions to the science
of aeronautics at the time. The ideas proposed in these works were later
incorporated into airfoil theory by the German physicist Ludwig Prandtl,
and are still used today, known as the Lanchester-Prandtl three dimensional
airfoil theory.
After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Lanchester, with great intrest,
witnessed battles in which aircraft he had worked on were used. He became
convinced of the need for a mathematical analysis of the relative strengths
of opposing battlefield forces to describe the effectiveness of aircraft.
By doing quantitative studies of the number of casualties on both sides
in land, sea, and air battles, he arrived at the Lanchester laws.
His findings are recorded in "Aircraft in Warfare the Dawn of the
Fourth Arm, " which he published in 1916. Lanchester's quantitative
and mathematical studies of the affect of aircraft in combat were the first
of their kind and attracted a great deal of attention. His book emphasized
the importance of the air force's role in military strategy of the future.
His suggestions were adopted by Major-General Henderson, with the result
that the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry were established.
Subsequently, the laws discovered by Lanchester were studied further in
the U.S. They were used with overwhelming success in military strategy in
the latter stages of World War II, including operations in the Central Pacific.
Lanchester's work was introduced into Japan in 1952 in a book on OR (Operations
Research) sent by quality expert, W. Edward Deming. [The book in question
is Methods of Operations Research by P. M. Morse and G. E. Kimball, published
jointly by MIT and John Wiley and Sons 1951 - ed]
In 1960, Mr. Sakurika, then manager of the Japanese Planning Agency's Policy
Bureau, collaborated with some of his ministry colleagues on a book. One
chapter, "Applying the Lanchester Laws to Corporate Competition,"
cites Lanchester's work, but mentions only that the most powerful competitor
wins.
It was the late Dr. Nobuo Taoka who applied Lanchester's theories to sales
strategy. From 1962 to 1984, he studied Lanchester's ideas and restructured
Lanchester's military and Operations Reserch strategies into a marketing
and sales strategy.
This sales strategy was lauded for dispensing with traditional idealism
and spirt, and for being a scientific, realistic sales strategy. The books
the Dr. Taoka wrote were unprecidented best sellers in the business category
in Japan.
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