HIDA JOURNAL 2014 SPRING No.4

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No.4 SPRING 2014 3this practice for 30 years. In this way, top management checks for every sales representative’s action. We think this is significant. Since sales representatives are working on the front lines, they know customer trends well.The third factor is our efforts on the manufacturing floor. In our worksite, everyone has to submit 10 innovative proposals each month. So far on average each employee has submitted 11 to 12 proposals per month. Moreover, as our QC circle activity, we pick an issue twice a year, and each department gives a presentation for the resolution of the issue. The chairperson and the president also attend these presentations to check the progress. Our steady growth is supported by these ongoing efforts.Finally, this may be a special feature of our company, but the last factor is our plant tour. Every year we host an increasing number of plant tours. We received about 100 requests during this term. Some visitors became our new customers after the tour, and the number of our customers is increasing. Actually, you bring visitors from abroad to our plant tour every year as part of HIDA’s Management Training Program. It started from the introduction of Dr. Kano, Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of Science. We never say no to any request for our plant tour. We even give a plant tour to our competitors in the same industry. We appreciate the fact that many visitors come to participate in our plant tour. Workers in the plant are motivated by visitors observing them, and the workers receive recognition by creating a good worksite. In this way, the tour is creating a virtuous cycle.You have many affiliated companies. Please tell us the characteristics of your business.In addition to three plants in Aichi Prefecture, our company has several affiliated companies as part of our production network. Our major affiliated companies include Matsushiro Tool Co., Ltd. which manufactures dies for forging and flat dies for rolling, MC Systems Inc. which sells water-based chromium-free surface treatment agent Geomet®, and a manufacture of anticorrosion processed (Geomet processed) metal parts. This production network of companies has enabled us the internal manufacturing of dies to establish in-company integrated production from cold forging to thread rolling, thermal treatment and surface treatment. Moreover, our special surface treatment technology, such as powerful anticorrosive coating Geomet and Torquer series which stabilizes tightening performance, differentiates our company from others. Integrated production allows us to respond to customer requests for any functional condition and design changes of bolts at a single window. Controlling the quality of surface treatment within the company makes a big difference in our customers’ confidence in us.Your company established manufacturing plants in Europe, the United States and China since the early 1990s, but this is your first foray into Southeast Asia, right?Yes. We have established manufacturing plants in the United States and China from the early 1990s to start local bolt production. However, this Indonesian plant is our first production plant in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is a country where the auto industry is expected to grow rapidly, and what we hear is that no Japanese bolt manufacturer has made a foray yet. As of November 2013, we are getting ready for production, and many Japanese engineers have arrived there to provide technical guidance to assist the launch of the new plant. Seven Japan-trained Indonesian engineers have returned to the country and are imparting what they learned in Japan to local workers under the supervision of Japanese staff.As globalization accelerates, it is important for overseas plants to keep up with rapid changes, too.We have many employees who worked overseas. When we asked how they felt when they returned from abroad, they said uniformly that the speed of change was very fast in Japan. Let me use an example to illustrate. According to them, “When I was in abroad, the local company is like a train that stops at every station. In comparison, Meidoh in Japan is like a Shinkansen bullet train or an airplane.” That is how fast the speed of change is in Meidoh in Japan. We think that knowing it through own experience creates an energy for change that pushes improvement toward a goal, and the energy further accelerates the speed of change.We need to apply the improvements developed in Meidoh in Japan to the plants in Germany, the United States, China and Indonesia at the faster pace. To do so, we believe education is critical.We heard that it was the first case to invite overseas local employees to a plant in Japan for training. Why did you think it was necessary to have training in Japan?We have training in a plant in Japan because it is impossible to know the distinctive culture of Meidoh unless you come to Japan to see it by yourself. We have so-called “3 Actuals Principle” that values “actual worksite,” “actual things” and “actual reality.” We believe the actual experience of manufacturing with Meidoh colleagues is important. We would like our customers in the Major products (High-strength bolts and nuts) (Thick bolts and long bolts)

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