HIDAJournal 2012 SPRING No.2

10/18

HIDA Journal No. 2 ● SPRING 20138The next company we will report on is P. T. NARUMI INDONESIA. It is an overseas production site for NARUMI CORPORATION (headquartered in Midori-ward, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture) which is the first Japanese company to successfully achieve the mass production of bone china. The company was established in 1995 in response to the rising value of the yen, which had rapidly accelerated since the late 1980s. It is located in East Jakarta Industrial Park in the suburbs of Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, and manufactures sophisticated bone china tableware.The Narumi Group takes pride in the shapes and colors of its tableware and delivering high-quality products to their customers. They conceive, create, and deliver fine products to make their customers happy. The group aggressively sells its products in the Japanese market and exports its products to such areas as Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, and the Middle and Near East as a company with a great reputation globally.The company focuses on human resource development to ensure high product quality, leveraging the training program in Japan provided by AOTS (currently HIDA) once and the experts dispatch program by JODC (currently HIDA) three times since its foundation. This time, we talked to President Director Masahiko Yamamoto, who shares the company’s experiences in using our programs and hardships that it faced in the past. [Date of interview: November 29, 2012]Please first explain what bone china is.Bone china is a term that is made of two English words: bone and china (meaning porcelain). This term is used since ox bone ash was used to manufacture bone china when it was first developed in the 18th cen-tury in Britain. It is considered the most beautiful form of porcelain as it features a warm milky-white color, smooth texture, and beautiful translucency. Tricalcium phosphate (chemically-processed ox bone ash elements) produces tender colors and special glaze leads to the elegant transpar-ency. Applying patterns while firing at low temperatures allows us to use pigments that would fade at high temperatures. This enables us to create more col-ors. Bone china often has beau-tiful paintings and fine patterns printed on them and attracts many collectors and fans.I did not know ox bone was used for porcelain. How do you manufacture bone china?The manufacturing process of bone china is divided into three processes. The first process (base material process) involves manufacturing the base materials for bone china. We shape and fire base materials for plates and cups using raw materials (i.e. a mixture of tricalcium phosphate, clay, and feldspars), changing the raw materials into porcelain. Then, we apply glaze to the porcelain and further fire it, which transforms glaze into glass and completes the base materials for bone china.The second process (printing process) involves manufacturing transfer paper, which applies printed patterns to the base materials. First, we create the original form for printing based on a sketch drawn by a designer using computer graphics. Then, this original form is placed on the transfer paper. Once in place, the computer graphics data is imposed on silver salt film, which is further imposed on the emulsion applied to a printing screen mesh. This completes the creation of screen printing materials. Finally, we print patterns on transfer paper using these screen printing materials and printing/precious metal pastes that contain paint and glue. This completes the creation of transfer paper.The third process (painting process) involves applying the pattern of the transfer paper onto the base materials by firing. We place transfer paper on the base materials for bone china and fire it, making the printed pattern stick to base materials. This completes the decoration. We decorate some products with such materials as gold or platinum and fire them once again.Do you execute all these three processes at your site?That’s right. Currently, we execute all these processes at our site. However, what we did at the onset of our operations was limited to the base material process and the painting process, with the printing process requiring more advanced skills transferred to our site at a later time. This does not mean that the base material process and the painting process are easy. The base material process shrinks base materials by approximately 20% through the first firing, requiring us to control product size in a strict manner in line with product features. In addition, creating 【P. T. NARUMI INDONESIA】Location: Bekasi Regency, Indonesia (East Jakarta In-dustrial Park)Established: October 1995Capital: USD 60 millionEmployees: 909 (as of November 30, 2012)Description of business: Manufacturing sophisticated bone china tablewarePresident Masahiko YamamotoExamples of HIDA ProgramsExperts Dispatch Program (From a Company Hosting an Expert)P. T. NARUMI INDONESIA

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