Mr. N, who has worked for ISOWA for 50 years, retired today.
We had him over at the Nagoya office to give us a retirement speech.
It was about his memories from childhood to when he first came to ISOWA and now.
Each and every one of the stories touched our hearts.
The one that moved me the most was about when he left his mother for ISOWA at the age of 15 in 1965.
She runs after him as the train starts. He said that was when he burst into tears.
And good old days with the matron and seniors at the dormitory.
Transfer to Tokyo. Acting Tokyo office manager after working in a few different sections.
Led the reform as an Osaka office manager.
I felt his love for ISOWA in every word he said.
Some of us got tears in their eyes. I was one of them.
He had prepared a note for the speech but after all it seemed like he simply spoke what came to his mind without looking at anything.
Only words from one’s heart can truly move other people.
We record every morning assembly so those who missed it can check it out later.
That means now we have a video of the speech.
I want everyone who will be working with us to listen to what he told us.
Here’s another story that he shared with us.
Soon after he started a career at ISOWA, on the way to fix a machine with Mr. M, they fell off their bike and they injured but they still fulfilled their duty.
Mr. M, who is 10 years elder than Mr. N, is still working.
Mr. M told us about when he let Mr. N stay at his place.
“I remember how neat the bed was after he slept. That shows his polite personality.”
Mr. M is 65 and he is still tougher than I am.
All the customers that he has met loves him.
That’s why I want him to be working with us for a little while longer.
But he has a 93-year-old mother in his home, and he wants to put his energy that he has devoted for ISOWA into taking care of his mother.
If he keeps working, he will be working too hard to look after his mother.
Never slack off. That’s who he is.
There is no way I can hold him back anymore.
It’s been 30 years since I started working for ISOWA.
The first half was 15 years of confrontation with him.
And the second half was 15 years of gradual mutual trust. Now he has become the one that I can really rely on.
Especially after what we went through in the first 15 years, I cherish the last 15 years spent with him.
I believe his son-in-law Mr. Y will take over his spirit.
I hope you will have a great time with your mother without having to care about the work.
Thank you very much for your 50 years at ISOWA.
Last spring, Mr. S at Sales Department told me about some customers.
According to him, they produce almost 200 orders a day.
Generally speaking, 100 per day is good enough. But 200!
Then it hit me.
“There might be customers who are making the most of our machines more than we expected.”
If some, I would like to find out and show our appreciation.
That’s why we decided to notify our customers of this and commend the operation team that has made the best achievement.
Today we visited two companies.
First up are Mr. Takamatsu, Mr. Osa and Mr. Kitazawa from Taiyo Shigyo. They have
established the quickest order change time. The record is 1 minute 56 seconds on daily
average.
They’ve been running our flexo folder gluer, Falcon, for 5 years and a half now.
They’ve had a great success in reducing the amount of the ink they use.
“This is the perfect machine for producing many different kinds of orders.”
They are seeking to shorten the order change time as much as possible.
That’s why at their plant, the operators are already ready to re-start the machine when the chim tones goes off to tell all order change procedures are finished.
“I want our sales team to understand the Falcon better. One of the reasons for the improvement in productivity is the sales strategy. That makes it possible for us to step forward.” Said the president.
Next up are Mr. Takagi, Mr. Yamazaki and Mr. Sometani from Takeda Shiki.
They set a record for the maximum numbers of jobs(orders) done per hour. Their record is 19 jobs per hour.
They introduced the falcon three years ago for the first time as a box plant.
“The maintenance costs and running costs are low. It has no brades, no belts. But it can produce 350 blanks per minute. There is no other machines like that.”
There has been no complaints about the joint accuracy since the Falcon started. All the sales staff consider the Falcon as our strong point. They have absolute trust in it.
“Before, the operators would wait for the machine to get ready. But now the Falcon waits for the operators to get ready. If we do better, there is a good chance of 22-3 jobs done per hour.”
As a matter of fact, these two companies are located in the same area, and they know each other well.
It seems like they were inspired by each other’s performance.
That’s how good rivals are supposed to be.
The goal this time was to show our respect and appreciation to those who actually operates our machines very successfully.
Both of the Falcon teams looked very happy.
Better productivity brings their companies benefits, which makes the presidents happy.
Making all involved happy.
This is what the idea “i machine” is all about.
I would like to say thank you to both companies.
We will keep supporting for you to bring out our machine’s full capacity.
