We Will Miss You

The Vertical Boring & Milling Machine produced by SHIN NIPPON KOKI CO.

It has been missing his master.
Mr. T in charge of this machine has taken a leave of absence for a long now because of his physical conditions.

It’s been a while since a cardboard sign representing his absence was put on the table.

In spite of our wish, there has been no sign of recovery. And finally, he retired today.

He has been working for 47 years just for ISOWA.

We missed him while he was out, and we are really going to miss him even more.

Since it was his last day as our member, he came by to see me. However I had to keep him waiting long because at that time I had a visitor.
If I had known that, I would’ve stepped out for a little while.

He lives in Seki, Gifu prefecture. He commuted 40 km each way for almost 50 years.
He had the longest commute times in ISOWA for a long time.

I asked him to take a photo together, but he was so shy that there’s no photo of us.
So I’ll use this one on the direction board beside the machine instead.

Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication.
We hope you will get better soon!

Thank You To Families!

This week, the major matter of conversation at office has been weather.

“Seems like the weather will hold.”

“They said it’d be raining.”

“Latest forecast says it’s going to be cloudy!”

It’s been a week of the jitters.

We had a good reason.

Today is the day of ISOWA family open house for the first time in 5 years.

This is what the layout looks like.

And this is today’s time table.

80 staffs have been putting a lot of effort into planning and preparing.

Obviously, their passion blew the rain away. Although it was raining in many parts of Japan, by some miracle, here in Nagoya, the sun sometimes even showed itself from behind the clouds.

In such a condition, we had 600 guests in total.

There has been so much for family open house.

I wish I could talk about everything.

The theme this time was “appreciation”.

The project members set this theme in hope we could convey a message of appreciation to our families.

That is so us.

I’ve been looking forward to getting to thank them face to face.

How has his family been doing over past the five years?

What do their partners that they married five years ago look like?

How big have their children got?

With excitement, I welcomed the guests at reception, and walked around to convey a message.

Of course it’s not that easy to thank them enough, but I felt I had to tell their father, mother, husband, wife, children and grandchildren.

“They’ve always supported us even when we had to ask for too much.

I’d like to apologize we’ve taken a lot of their time with their families, and thank you for being cooperative.”

And I also want to tell those who weren’t there today.

Every single word you give us is treasure for ISOWA to go on.

“Work for myself and for my beloved family.”

I promise we will do our utmost to realize this belief.

Please walk with us.

And finally, I would like to say a thank you from the heart to all of our staff who has spent a lot of their time and energy to make it successful. Thank you very much.

Shape Our Dream

Last Friday, 21st was an unforgettable day.

I’m going to tell you what happened that day.

We decided to have a morning assembly that was not scheduled.

That’s because, the day before, “i Machine” that we’ve been working on for 2 years was finally completed, and the customer who bought it came to our factory for pre-delivery inspection. 

What I really wanted everyone to know was something that happened during their visit.

Our conventional machine sometimes have to put operators in danger.

Although most of them are minor injuries so that they didn’t even have to go to hospital, the frequency of injuries always bothers operators and manegement. 

Mr. H, one of the ‘i Machine’ project members, has been developing with a dream to reduce the risk. 

There were a lot of technical and cost issues to overcome.

He’s invested a lot of energy and passion with this machine.

It was highly valued by the customer.

We want to create a machine that won’t suddenly break down or stop.

We’d like to offer safety, relief, productivity, quality, reliability, and someday happiness.

We’ve been trying to complete “i machine” that embodies our belief and will be loved by customers.

We could finally realized our belief, and, most importantly, it satisfied the customer.

I wanted those who were not there to know that story.

Then Mr. M started speaking about the same episode, of course without any prior consultation.

Moreover, Mr. H, another project member picked up that subject at the group gathering, too.

“It was the happiest moment for me, too.”

This is exactly what I’m talking about.

Speak to the employees.

E-mail them.

Make a slogan and hang it on the wall.

A company does a lot of things to infiltrate their policy through the whole company.

What really matters is not taking many actions, but sharing thoughts and moving towards the same direction together.

I don’t like the word, “infiltration”. It sounds one-sided.

Or rather I want to feel and act together with my workmates, which is essential to be as one.

That’s what a team is all about.

If we hadn’t had togetherness, the three of us couldn’t have felt the same way.

But we did and so did the customer.

This is the very first step of ISOWA’s i Machine.

We will creat real value to cutomers as we reform our corporate culture.

Our change is now underway.

Thank you for working for ISOWA!

We commended our long time employees at today’s morning assembly.

First of all, Mr. F and Mr. I in the above picture, Mr. K who’s away on business and Mrs. U of Tokyo office.They’ve been working for us for 40 years.

They are all the same age as me.

Until the last year, 40 year-employees had been older thanI was.

But finally we’re all of an age.

Mr. H, Mr. Y and Mrs. F from ISOWA HOOPERSWIFT, 30 year-employees.

20 year- employees make me look like someone who just got drafted.

Mr. U, Mr. Ko, Mr. T, Mr. M and Mr. Ka.

Mrs. K who’s in her 10th year here.

In spite of the fact that she has worked for 10 years, she still looks young…

Mr. H and Mr. O who just turned 20.

I look like a short man between them.

Mr. Y was commended not as a long time employee but for advanced suggestions for improvement.

We gave them time to say a few words.

“Without my family and colleagues, I wouldn’t be here.”

“For talent training, I’ll give my knowledge to only two people in order of arrival.”

“I’m so glad to be a part of this warm company.”

　

“There is much more I want to do.”

“Tomorrow I’ll be bigger than who I am today.”

Everyone was amazing. I hope more staffs tell their storyto us like this.

I thought “just for today...” and decided to make them do it, which eventually left no time for my speech.

But I believe those stories were worthier listening to than my speech.

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has been a part of ISOWA.

And I hope ISOWA will have more long time employees in the future.

Shining Brightly

ISOWA staffs are starting to get back from installation during the year change period.
However, the door to the workshop is locked and I can’t go in there.
And even if I can, access is allowed only in a restricted area by the barricades.

Although the floor painting at the assembly area had been finished by the end of the last
year, the passage painting is now in progress before things get busy at the peak of the next
shipment.

It’s done in a very primitive way. They paint using a stick with a roller on the tip little by little,
over and over again.
You probably don’t know this, but the floor is wearing heavy make-up.

The front side has just been painted, and beyond the pylons, not yet.
You can see how different they look.

One thing I worry about is that they will forget themselves painting the floor and when they
come to senses, all sides around them are painted and they will never be able to get out.

Don’t worry. There are bridges like this here and there, just in case.

But those bridges are narrow and shaky.
I hope anyone doesn’t lose balance and fall on the floor.
I almost did..


Regular maintenance is essential for a factory to last for a long time
Remodel of the workshop into the showroom.
Let’s just stay focused.

So Young!

This time of the year, we need our products to get checked by the
customers before shipment if they work properly.

Today, we had a customer from Shikoku.

We demonstrate how the machine worked so they can see everything's okay.

One of the guests said,
"Every time I came here, I realize ISOWA is changing. Also, technical
staff are all young."

That was exactly what I was thinking.

Mr. S of technical division who did a presentation is in his 9th year.
Mr. S who actually operated the machine is in his 2nd year. Even Mr. M
who just joined ISOWA this year was in charge of the control system.

The way Mr. S was working was so impressive that I can't help saying,
"I'm in love with your industriousness."

Seeing Mr. Y in his fourth year at the end of the printer, I said,
"With other members, it seems like you are not young anymore."

He answered,
"I have to keep up the effort not to get left behind.

The new generation is getting stronger.
I'm very proud of them.

Looking Back at 2013

In December, we had the last off-site meeting of this year at Scholar Consult Co.

Here are the themes.

 What is the best decision of the year?

 And what is the worst decision of the year?

We were all given the theme suddenly and time to think ourselves.

This time I took part in with four ISOWA staffs, including Mr. Nakamura, a regular participant.

I thought they were thinking about their own worst decisions of the year.

But then they were told to speak about “my” worst decision.

They looked a little upset, but I was happy I would get their opinions.

After 10 minutes of thinking.

Here are the opinions.

I’m going to introduce what they wrote.

Mr. H

“Office Layout change”

When I first suggested it, apparently he was not happy about that.

But he said,

“Thanks to that suggestion, now we can try many different layouts in each division.”

Mr. O

“I Machine. It leads the way for us.”

It is one of my recent preoccupations, and I was glad to know he think it’s important, too.

These are my best of the year. What about my worst?

Their answer was “nothing”.

I wanted to know my worst, so it made me disappointed.

Mr. Okamura from Scholar said instantly,

“It’s a problem that you cannot remember the boss’s worst.”

I feel the same. I hope they let me know by the end of the year.

Mr. S who wrote my worst.

“He won’t show us his weakness at all.”

That was unexpected.

I thought I did and had many weaknesses.

But it is a good thing that I knew that some people were feeling like that about me.

I’m not going to tell you here what I wrote.

If you want to know, please ask someone who was there.

At the after-party, Mr. O from company K confessed,

“Although my boss asks for my opinion, I can’t tell him, because I think it’s a matter for himself.”

Mr. O from ISOWA answered,

“You should feel lucky about that. There are so many people who can’t say anything even though he wants to.”

As he said so, I will ask for his opinion more often.

But, actually, I don’t want to do that. Because asking for someone’s opinion means urging him or her to do it.

Especially when people who are in the position of president like me do it, they will be too afraid to say something from the heart.

It’s the best that you give me your honest opinions voluntarily.

Looking back on my decisions, I felt I haven’t been able to do anything special this year.

Mr. Okamura said,

“There are two types of management style. Some company let the president make many decisions, others not on purpose.”

Someday I hope to say with confidence, “I don’t make decisions myself because that’s my management style”.