E-mail from the Site

Yesterday I attended anzen-kigan-sai (ritual to pray for the safety) and the machine launching ceremony at one of the customers where ISOWA’s machine had just been installed.

Then this morning I woke up to find that I got a message from one of the ISOWA’s staff who have been working hard there.

I’d like to share it with you.

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Good morning.

First of all, I’d like to say thank you for joining us at the ceremony.

I am so relieved that we could successfully run the machine at the highest speed for demonstration.

And I’d also like to thank you for your warm encouragement.

Although there’s still a lot of work left to do, we had dinner together after work today.

I have attached a photo.

We all desperately want this project to succeed.

“I have never been more nervous than I was seeing the machine test run.

But I felt even more rewarded when it went well. And that gave me a huge sense of achievement. It was the best feeling ever.”

That’s what F said in the middle of the dinner.

And I believe all of us feel the same way.

I’m very lucky to get to work with these amazing people and to be part of this big project.

But then again, we still have a long way to go. We will work even harder to get satisfying results.

It would be great if you could visit again when it’s all completed.

Thank you again,

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The above picture is the one he’s talking about.

A big thank you to everyone!

Actually, I’m the one who has to consider himself lucky to have you all.

And we will also try our best to make the customers feel lucky to have ISOWA!

Orange-colored Ibis

This is a printer that will be installed at a customer’s plant this month.

We had the customer over for pre-shipment inspection today.

It’s named Ibis.

We’ve sold more than 60 of these machines and this is the first time we have gotten an order for the orange version.

These days, customers tend to bring the most bothering orders they have to inspection.

Therefore, they don’t look like usual corrugated boxes that you would normally imagine with normal aspect ratio.

For today’s inspection, we had a long narrow one, flat one and big and tall one.

For instance, the flattest case at the front.

Its original figure looks like this.

Extremely long, isn’t it?

It’s much harder than you may think to produce these cases with quality.

That’s why customers want to test the machine quality with those tough orders.

Now you must be wondering how it went today.

I’ll let you take a closer look.

As you can see, it’s perfect.

That long narrow ones,

They ended up looking like this

Seeing the machine eject those quality cases, the customer kept saying,

“It’s truly amazing!”

“How is this possible?”

“I couldn’t ask for more.”

The joint gap of our printers has been improved dramatically over the past few years.

Thanks to that, we don’t have to make customers worried anymore and can even surprise them in a good way.

We will make sure that this will be the “i-Machine” for the customer.

Strategy Verbalizing Meeting

ISOWA’s strategy verbalizing meeting.

It’s gotten into the 3^rd round.

The theme is how to realize our goal “ISOWA always keeps you going – always on the go!”

When we kicked it off, I asked them to promise me some things.

1.    Don’t try to find the right answer. There is no answer to this matter.

2.    Present your own opinion. Not from each department’s perspective.

3.    Listen closely to what other people say.

At first we tried to start by segmenting the customers but at some point we realized we didn’t even have to try.

Because we noticed that strategy is the only thing that segments the customers.

Customer segmentation isn’t even necessary when you have clear strategies.

Then the next question was,

Which segment do we need to target?

For this question, we all agreed on targeting Segment #2.

That’s when the discussion got excited.

Then we picked one company from the segment and discussed how to embody “ISOWA always keeps you going” for that particular customer.

We found another clue during this argument.

It’s the word “Tailor-made”

When we say, “ISOWA always keeps you going”, who are YOU?

It’s not just machines or plants or management.

It’s each customer who we’re trying to keep going.

That’s why we should stop looking at things from our own side and contemplate what the president of the customer really wants from ISOWA.

Putting ourselves in the customer’s shoe, we came up with some ideas.

We brought them to the president to get his opinion the other day.

After getting his agreement and taking a look inside the plant, today we had a discussion on it.

As a result, we agreed to get the spin-off project started which will be focused on this customer with Mr. S and Mr. M appointed as leader.

We’ve also decided to put an end to the 3^rd round as the spin-off project is beginning, which none of us saw coming.

Strategy verbalizing meeting will go on to the 4the round, of course.

We will be helping the new project get on the right track and keep up efforts to realize our vision.

What I’m trying to say is,

ISOWA will keep ourselves going, too!

Thank you all who has been a part of it!

Message From Thailand

A tree standing under the beautiful sky.

This is a photo Mr. H, my business companion, emailed me from Thailand.

>I visited company T yesterday.

>Right in front of the parking lot, I found a tree with your name.

>If I remember correct, it was when you attended the opening ceremony for T’s new plant.

>It feels like it’s growing faster than usual in the tropical weather.

>I have attached a photo of the tree.

>Hope you will like it.

It’s that tree!

It was February, 2011.

I made a speech in English in front of a large audience.

It made me nervous and sweat a lot.

That’s why I remember clearly.

It’s only been 4 years but, like Mr. H says, it’s gotten really tall.

I’m also glad that Mr. H cared about me enough to send me the photo.

Speaking of the ceremony, a woman sitting next to me talked to me after my speech.

“It was such a fun speech”

She looked so familiar to me. She reminded me of someone I know from TV.

My instinct was right.

It turned out that she was Mari Christine who used to appear on a Japanese TV show.

Ever since that day, we have been in touch for 4 years now.

Gorgeous ceremony, the speech I made and getting to know Mari.

All those memories came back to me at once.

Thanks for the picture, Mr. H!

What Lifts Me Up

ISOWA’s supporters association.

It consists of 38 suppliers of ISOWA.

And they had a party for my 60^th birthday at a hotel in the city.

One of the hotel server came talk to me,

“I’ve never seen suppliers throw a party for a buyer like this.

I’ve never seen them serve this gorgeous dinner either.”

I never thought my 60^th birthday party would be so great.

Especially, I couldn’t thank Mr. T enough who has organized all of it.

At the end of the party, they even brought out a fancy cake.

It was perfect dessert for someone who has a sweet tooth like I do.

There was one thing that I wanted to do.

I wanted to take a picture with every single person who was there.

And I wanted the pictures to look nice.

That’s why I asked Mr. K who is particular about photographs to come with me.

I want you to know I wasn’t making him take photos the whole time.

I wanted him in a picture, too.

We are all born good but weak. So am I.

And it’s ISOWA’s supporters association who always pulls me through.

To show how thankful I am, I picked the appreciation gift myself.

1.8 kg a person. 80kg in total.

That’s how grateful I am. I hope they will like it.

You want to know what it was?

That’s a secret between us.

I would like to say thank you again for a wonderful night and always being supportive.

Turning to a New Chapter of the Industry

Today was a historic day for us.

Realizing the concept of “i Machine” is what we have been working on for four years.

And now the time has come to launch the 2^nd machine into the market, as the first one has been successfully operated for more than one year.

The customers who have ordered the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th machine came for acceptance inspection.

While we were showing them the machine in action, they all took out their smartphones and kept taking a video with excitement.

It’s like when a celebrity shows up in front of his huge fans.

“This is going to be the new trend in the industry.”

“I like the concept.”

“It absolutely meets our high expectations.”

“The quality is perfect.”

We got so many good feedbacks.

It made me happy they wouldn’t stop praising the machine.

That reminds me of a saying,

“Functional things are beautiful.”

I promise we will keep creating new value in the corrugated industry.

Appreciation for the pioneers

We had anzen-kigan-sai (ceremony held to pray for the safety) ahead of the demolition of the plant 1 and 2.

I thought of my grandfather who built these plants 55 years ago, my father and all of the ISOWA workers who have gone before us.

Every time I saw the floor, the roof and each column, I could feel tears and happiness they had in this place.

ISOWA wouldn’t exist without all those efforts they made.

While I was in the plant, they all kept asking me one thing.

“Have you read that message yet?”

This is that message.

“Thank you for letting me use this place as a welding shop for a long time.”

It was written by one of the plant workers.

The priest seemed really impressed with the message.

“You have a wonderful employee. That is what’s special about ISOWA.“

I think we should always be thankful like he is.

I was standing in the middle of the plant after everyone was gone.

Then I saw a ray of beautiful light coming into the plant.

It was such a spectacular view.

I wondered what was beyond the light.

Then I found our guardian beyond the gate.

It must be a sign of good luck!

It felt like the guardian and the pioneers are leading the way for us towards the safe construction and success of the new plant.

Let’s make that happen!