What a machine sitting in the dark tells you

“Bon” holiday season is over in japan.

For those who don’t know, Bon is a one-week holiday in the middle of August when the spirits of our ancestors are believed to come back to our world.

Right before the holiday is when you can see our factory full of machines ready to be delivered.

The picture above is of a corrugator doublefacer for a Japanese customer.

Before shipping it out, we had the customer over for pre-shipment check-up.

“Not to mention the machine is great, what impressed me the most is the way your people relate to us, and how committed they are to making good machines”, says the customer.

Talking to them, I was thinking back to the time I had just joined the company.

Back then, assembly was always behind the schedule.

Shipment date was approaching, but machines were far from ready.

Some of us would even have to pull an all-nighter getting the machine ready for shipment.

This was so common back in the day that nobody didn’t even seem to care.

Then I started corporate cultural reform.

Fortunately, I haven’t seen it in a long time now. If you go to our shop past 5pm, it’s likely lights are all out and no one is there, just like when I went to take the picture above.

This is not because we don’t have as many orders as we used to. As a matter of fact, we have been at the full capacity for many years.

Yet we’ve become able to make better machines more stably and more quickly.   

Corporate culture may seem to have nothing to do with machine assembly.

But, believe it nor not, it’s what made this all possible.

How About a Meeting Room Like This?

We have renovated one of the meeting rooms into a traditional Japanese style one.

Looks cozy, doesn’t it?

Hung on the wall is a calligraphy work from my wife, which says ‘culture’ in Japanese ‘Kanji’ characters.

The reason I chose this word is because I wanted this room to be filled with interactions that could help to create the best workplace culture in the world.

　　　　

Another fascinating feature of this room is that it’s made partly of corrugated sheets!

How?

Look at the table! 

They’re also put under the tatami mats as a foundation.

Curious what it’s like having a meeting in here?

You’re always welcome if you’re interested!  (Hopefully interested in our machines, too!)

Workplace Culture at ISOWA

It was almost 5 years ago when a grad student from Tokyo first visited us.

She was studying organizational development, and she got so interested in us that she’s been visiting for research every several months ever since.

Her research is normally conducted through an interview with our members.

For today’s session, we had Mt. T of Accounting tell his story at ISOWA.

And it was truly mind-blowing!

He started with a story from high school,

“The best team I’ve ever been a part of was a football team at high school.”

“We were good friends and had a firm trust relationship with one another, but that doesn’t mean we were kind to each other all the time.

Actually, it was the opposite. We were never easy on mistakes teammates make. There was always a certain degree of intensity that often caused conflicts. Yet, we believed in each other.

That culture is what I liked the most about the team.

And I chose ISOWA because I felt there was similar workplace culture here.”

When he started working two years ago, he realized the relationships were good but his accounting team could still collaborate better both internally and externally.

I’m not going into the further details here, but he said to the world that he was going to be the one who will be making a change necessary for the better.

All this came from a guy who everyone else thought was quiet and shy!

It was definitely the best story telling of ISOWA’s history.

Team culture of Accounting may sound irrelevant to customers out there.

But I do believe the dots will somehow connect.

That’s what fostering better workplace culture is all about!

Seasonal Tradition at ISOWA

Beginning of May is one of the biggest holiday seasons in Japan called “Golden Week”.

As you may know, many of our employees don’t get to actually take time off for national holidays, because we have to use that time to install machines while operation stops at customer plants.

In fact, 146 of us were assigned for 12 installations this Golden Week.

But, this year’s Golden Week was a little different.

This year the holidays were extended even longer to 10 straight days due to the imperial succession.

Some of the machines don’t need that much time to be installed, so installation staff could spend half of the holidays with their families.

After some relaxing time for everyone, all the installations were completed safely and successfully.

Our employees and their families get to have a good time together.

And happy employees do a great job and make customers happy.

This is how thing are supposed to be.

That’s what ISOWA’s credo “Work for the happiness of our beloved families” is all about.

I wish one day every holiday season would be just like this for us!

Falcon Takes Off Half The World Away

Another “Falcon”, ISOWA’s Flexo Folder Gluer, started running in Brazil. (Literally half the world away from where it was manufactured!)

I got a report from Mr. O of Export Department, where I found customer feedback that made me really happy.

“We’ve had so many installations with various machine suppliers in the history but this is the smoothest one ever. Trainers have never been this dedicated. Overall, we’re really satisfied with the job you’ve done.”

According to the report, they hit the productivity target they set before the installation two weeks into the commercial run, and then decided to raise the target by 25%.

We will provide the continuous support to help them achieve and stay above the new target as long as possible.

Thank you to all involved in the installation!

From Half A Day To 5 Minutes

It was a pre-shipment inspection day.

We had a customer over who purchased our Flexo Folder Gluer “Falcon”.

　　　　

　　　　(Tapes are for protection just in case you are thinking it looks sloppy..)

We ran 4 orders designated by the customer beforehand.

One of them is the one that the guy in the middle is holding.

It’s an A flute box with a depth of almost 25 inches and a huge imbalance between each panel width.

What makes this one even harder is its heavy basis weight, which means papers are very hard.

It’s an extremely tough box to make in terms of both dimensions and ingredients.

How well can Falcon deal with this tough box?

We ran it at 100pcs per minute which is actually less than 1/3 of the maximum speed.

1/3 of the maximum speed. It doesn’t sound good, does it?

Yet the customer was extremely happy about that.

How is that possible?

It’s possible when they are currently spending literally HALF A DAY making 500 cases of this order to make sure the folding accuracy meets the end-customer’s requirement.

With the Falcon, it’ll be done in 5 minutes, not to mention the quality is perfect!

The Falcon is equipped with our patented device called “Edge Opener” that skyrockets the folding accuracy especially with deep boxes like this one.

Aren’t you having trouble achieving the targeted quality with deep boxes?

If it sounds familiar, let us help you!

What Color Is Our Belief?

Since our recruitment website is getting a little old, we have been discussing its renewal.

As we discussed, we started to think that we should replace not just the recruitment website but the whole corporate website.

Around the same time, I happened to read a book about the brand design strategy of Mazda, a Japanese automaker.

It explains how they are paying so much attention to every tiny detail of their product design to reinvent its brand image.

After reading it, I wanted to do the same with ISOWA. And the website renewal is a perfect place to start.

I immediately talked to a color-coordinator that I knew, and she said she’d help.

A few days later, the first question she posed was, “What color do you think ISOWA’s corporate belief is?”

To be honest, I couldn’t answer, because I’d never thought about that.

But it got me thinking.

We got a corporate color which is purple-blue. But what does that color stand for?

Does it really represent our belief?

Well I don’t think it does.

Why not? Because when we decided on the corporate color a long time ago, we didn’t even have the belief that we have now.

Then what did the color really represent?

It represents ISOWA as just a machine manufacturer.

It was supposed to display our reliability and accountability, and our products’ robustness and stability.  

We’re still a machine manufacturer, and that has always been an important aspect of us, but, over the course of more than 15 years of corporate cultural reform, who we are deep inside and why we do what we do obviously changed.

Each member of ISOWA tries to achieve happiness of their beloved families through providing happiness to customers, that’s the core part of our belief.

That brings us to the original question.

What color best depicts us as a machine manufacturer with the firm belief?

The discussion has just started.

I really look forward to seeing where this project goes!