As a former regional rep and current LGM of a multi-marque dealership that deals in Yamahas I am going to chime in here. The three fork design, like a previous poster had stated, comes from the origin of the company. In 1887 Yamaha started out making pianos and pipe organs. Over the years they branched out into other parts of the musical instrument industry and in 1955 they built their first motor. Today Yamaha is one of the largest conglomerates in the world. Their expertise covers many different industries. In fact Ford even uses their motors in their small cars and truck today (i.e. Ford Taurus SHO). The company has stated in dealer marketing tools that the three fork logo is a representation of quality, workmanship and precision in all faucets of their company. Also like a previous poster had stated they recently condensed a major part of their manufacturing business to cut down on costs and assembly times. In Japan after WWII the US brought over the industrial philosophy of on-demand-supply or 5S. Basically what that means is the manufacturing facilities work on a lean production schedule and only have the materials available as they need them. Cuts down on all in cost, speeds up manufacturing time and reduces the amount of production run defects for a specific product line. The condensing of several "unrelated" parts of their production into a single facility is part of a Japanese custom of Kaizan, or making improvements to increase productivity. So like the previous poster had said, instead of having several different plating facilities you have one large one that can handle all aspects of plating for the entire product line. It was incredible to witness these facilities when I worked for the company. I spent about seven months over there walking the production floors and talking to the workers building the products I was presenting to my clients back home in the States.
