Emphasis: High Tech-High-Precision Products,
QC Circles, HRM
· Backgrounds of selection of the company:
Any company tends to be inefficient and bureaucratic as it grows bigger and bigger. The result is to lose competitive power and to lose the entire business.
As one of the business re-structuring measures to prevent this from happening as well as to start new business ventures, the so-called “Company System” is introduced (the first was established by Sony in 1994) at many companies in Japan in recent years. This system is more advanced than the IBU (Independent Business Unit) as this pseudo-independent company keeps its balance sheet and profit & loss statement under the corporate company.
This company is one of these companies established when entirely new products were developed for the new market.
…….Small is Beautiful…….
• Points of Interest:
1. How the new product was developed.
2. Kaizen and Quality Circles activities as the basis of Gemba Management.
3. Advantages of the “ Company System”; Quick decision-making and implementation, Re-vitalizing organization, Clearly defined responsibility of company profitability.
On Site Observations:
1. Products are Digital Camera Optics, Copier Color-LBP, and Photo-Sensitized Materials.
2. For Camera lenses, made 22 modifications almost one every year.
3. The sequence of operations; Coating, Centering, Optical Cementing of two or more lenses and Painting lenses to be used for glasses.
4. New Product Development; The mother company encouraged its senior R&D expert to establish a new company. This new company sells its products to the mother company and any other customer.
Two sections of the production area are divided. In one section regular type lenses are manufactured. In the other section, the new high technology product is manufactured. The material used for this product is plastic and glass. The shape of this new product is completely different from convex and concave type lenses.
New products mainly used in optoelectronic products. More than 2,000,000,000 pieces of the newly built lenses were sold universally in less than three years. 3D smart Phones, Robots, AGVs, Panoramic Cameras, and Unmanned Areal Vehicle are a few kinds of commonly used devices are using these high technology-high precision products.
Today more than 150 patents are presented about new invention and developing new technologies.
Quick Response Quality Control System; All defected parts are collected at QRQC station and all supervisors meet at the same place every two hours (four times during the shift) discuss the problems, find solutions and go to their own stations to take action.
a) To make a good two-way communication system (top-down and bottom-up) QCCs are organized. 17 Quality circles are actively pursuing the problems. Managers have close contact with QCCs and encourage them to solve problems. They also try to help them scientifically to enrich understanding of their subordinates.
b) One of the top Toyota managers said to keep your people motivated one must Challenge, Encourage, Respect and Expect them to make improve them.
This midset is practiced by this Kaizen company as well.
c) A presentation was made by one of the QCCs. They found out 66%of the defects are because of off-centering. By teamwork activities, they could improve Straight OK Rate from 62.2 to 89.5 within 4 months.
d) Multi-Skills Training is one of the results of Teamwork activities.
e) 5W&1H results were to set-up new standards to prevent problems from re-happening.