With not only material prices increasing but also the supply of materials themselves remaining unstable, ISOWA’s No. 5 Logistics Plant was completed on schedule. We held a small ceremony officiated by Mr. Uehara of the Ryosha-gu Shrine near ISOWA.
If you look toward the back of the ceremony
venue, you can see rows and rows of tables and chairs. I’ll tell that story
later, so stay tuned!
The No. 5 Logistics Plant is quite a large
building which is 80 meters wide, 15 meters deep, and two stories high.
Everyone in the photo fits comfortably into the frame, but somehow, I look
unusually small. (;^_^A
I guess I really am a “small” person after
all! (LOL)
Until now, we had simply called this
facility a “warehouse.” However, when we decided to rebuild it, we wanted it to
be much more than just a place to store things.
Our vision was to create a smooth flow of
goods and information from deliveries and storage of items supplied by our
TASUKE-bito partners, to the movement of materials within ISOWA’s plants, and
finally to shipments from ISOWA to our customers.
In other words, rather than treating the
warehouse simply as a cost center, we set out to transform it into a logistics
plant that creates new value as a profit center.
Just like the machines we deliver to our
customers, delivery itself is not the finish line. It is the starting line.
Our goal is to make full use of this new
facility so that it will contribute to our profitability for the next 10 or 20
years.
Following the relocation of our Tokyo Sales
Office to its new premises, this marks another major capital investment for
ISOWA.
Let’s make the most of it and use it to
help reduce our customers’ opportunity loss!
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to everyone
who was involved in the construction of this new facility.
*”KIKAI” is homonym in Japanese, meaning
“Machine” and “Opportunity” :)
After the completion ceremony...
We invited ISOWA’s TASUKE-bito partners to
join us for a Summer Festival Open House to celebrate the completion of our No.
5 Logistics Plant.
In addition to 250 TASUKE-bito partners, we
were joined by children who became ISOWA fans through our Dream Kitchen
activities, the Dream Kitchen staff, and our neighbors, whom we had
inconvenienced during the construction of the new plant.
Altogether, around 300 people joined us for
the celebration!
People, people, and more people...
First, Hikaru gave a few words of welcome
to everyone, but with so many people gathered, it was almost impossible to tell
where he was speaking from!
After that, our guests had the opportunity to see ISOWA’s machines in operation.
Among all the TASUKE-bito partners, the
members of Dream Kitchen were also watching the machines with great interest.
ISOWA’s strategy is centered on the value
we provide to our customers: “Contributing to the reduction of opportunity loss
in corrugated board plants.”
One of the key ideas supporting this
strategy may sound irrational at first, but we believe it is actually essential
to making the entire strategy work: being “fair, open, and aboveboard” with our
customers.
In a sense, being truly fair and
transparent is extremely difficult in business. However, within ISOWA’s overall
strategic story, we want to turn what may seem “irrational” into something that
makes sound business sense.
In the same way, with our TASUKE-bito
partners, we want to achieve “mutual prosperity”—to grow and prosper together.
That, too, is difficult in business. In
fact, we still have a long way to go, even more so than with our efforts to be
fair and transparent with our customers.
But just as we have worked on transforming
our corporate culture for more than 25 years, we believe that if we take a
long-term approach and turn what may initially seem irrational into something
rational, we can build a truly resilient supply chain.
I promised our TASUKE-bito partners that we
will continue working toward that goal.
We sincerely appreciate your continued
support, partnership, and guidance.
And finally, a heartfelt thank you to
everyone who came and made the event such a wonderful gathering!
Following the event for our TASUKE-bito
partners and neighbors, we wrapped up the day with the ISOWA Family Summer
Festival for our employees and their families.
I gave the opening remarks wearing my
favorite Roadster T-shirt, but there were people, people, and more people! Even
standing on the stage, I couldn’t see everyone’s faces.
The newly completed No. 5 Logistics Plant,
which had been completely empty just moments before, was now packed with
people, with barely any room to move!
We invited a total of 10 food trucks to the
festival.
These photos were sent to me by Mr. I, our
photographer, and I didn’t even realize that there was a food truck serving
“1-Pound Steak” until I saw it in the photos.
What a surprise!
There was also a wide variety of drinks to choose from, including alcoholic beverages.
And as you can see, the festival was a huge
hit! This time, we introduced a brand-new attraction. And that was...
What could it be???
Huh?
Who is this suspicious-looking person?
Perhaps…
Oh, it’s an Art Car!
The man in the center is the artist,
Mr.Daichi Mori. Ever since I first saw his Art Car project at Cafe Plus α,
which is run by my younger brother, I had been hoping that someday we could do
something like this at ISOWA, too.
And we finally made it happen! Here is what
it was like before the painting began...
Oh, and the man in the photo with the car is my younger brother, Takashi, the owner of the café. In addition to helping with the Art Car, he was also in charge of serving sweets at the festival.
And then, with the help of the children...
It was transformed into this amazingly
colorful and cheerful service car!
We removed the license plates for the
painting, but make no mistake. This is a genuine ISOWA service car. We’ll put
the finishing touches on it, and soon our service team will be visiting
domestic customers in this one-of-a-kind vehicle. If you see it coming your
way, please give it a warm welcome!
And from there, the story naturally led into a demonstration run of an ISOWA printing machine.
A large crowd gathered in one corner of the
plant, waiting for the demonstration to begin.
Then Mr. K, who was running the show, started giving some instructions to one of the children.
Actually, our engineers had prepared
something special just for this day. A start button designed especially for our
little operators!
When the child touched the “SPEED UP” icon...
The machine started running at full production speed!
And then...
A huge round of applause erupted from all the families watching.
What a wonderful sight, so very ISOWA!
Everyone had a fantastic time, enjoying all the delicious food from the various food trucks. What a great atmosphere, it was simply the best!
And then, the party was over.
But just when it was coming to an end, I
witnessed yet another wonderful moment.
Many of the participants spontaneously began wiping down the tables with the wipes that had been provided. It reminded me of soccer fans cleaning up the stadium after a match.
That’s the ISOWA-bito spirit!
Supported by such wonderful people, our two-night summer festival—the 2026 ISOWA Friendship Association Summer Festival and the ISOWA Family Summer Festival—came to a very successful close.
