HIDA Journal 2015 AUTUMN No.7

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No.7 AUTUMN 2015　11advanced technologies are needed to handle new products, we will also dispatch one Japanese engineer in addition to a Thai engineer to have them offer technical instruction through their combined abilities. You’re using Thailand as a central hub for strengthening your business in the Asian region, where there is rising demand for molds, correct? That’s exactly right. We are extending our network into Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea, and have established “Set Asia” to link together our bases in the Asian region. In 2014, we fabricated surface texturing that applies stich patterns for new vehicle models for a Malaysian auto manufacturer as the Set Asia Group. Our two subsidiaries in Thailand mentioned above form the central core of this. What is more, we were the first Japanese-affiliated texturing manufacturer to expand into the Philippines in 2014. By introducing technology from Japan and Thailand, we have been able to perform processing on nearly every Japanese and Western texturing pattern. Auto manufacturers frequently change models and must offer new designs. We plan to continue to develop human resources at our Thai base in the future to enable us to fabricate new surface texturing at our Thai subsidiaries and offer this to our customers. Can you tell us about your specialized technical training for trainees? For the selection of trainees, we select them by looking for aptitude among those people who have at least one or more years of work experience and who understand the basic technologies behind surface texturing. At present, our subsidiaries in Thailand have already built up a team of managers who are university graduates, so we have not been recruiting university graduates for this. The five trainees that recently visited Japan are either high school or vocational school graduates, with the expectation being that these people will serve as supervisors at the front lines of their workplaces. After arriving in Japan in April and taking part in introductory training at HIDA for six weeks, they have been circulating around to three of our domestic factories (Nagoya, Saitama, and our head ofce and factory in Yokohama) where they will receive training until December. We have an abundance of training subjects in Japan, since we receive orders for a wide array of product patterns, and we also have a lot of seasoned veteran engineers. As a result, we can adequately handle providing instruction to the trainees. All three of these factories perform surface texturing, but each factory has different customers. Even for surface texturing that is similar, the texturing patterns differ depending on the auto manufacturer, and are distinctive to each manufacturer. Each factory has amassed technologies that they specialize in for each different customer. So if you were to ask whether it would be easy for engineers at our Nagoya Factory to undertake the processing work of our Saitama Factory, I would say that in actuality this would be difficult for them in certain regards. The reality is that it would be difficult even for Japanese engineers to flexibly handle the work of each factory. Conversely, since our Thai subsidiary performs surface texturing for every Japanese auto manufacturer, we have arranged it so that the trainees will rotate around to our three factories in Japan (with stints of two months at each one), to allow them to learn all the technologies they need without exception. The trainees can follow along as long as we use simple Japanese. We also have a lot of people who can speak Thai, including the manager and foreman at our Nagoya Factory and some of the current trainee instructors and Japanese personnel at our factories. As a result, they oftentimes speak to the trainees in a mixture of Japanese and Thai. Even before we established our rst subsidiary in 2001, we undertook surface texturing via business partnerships with local companies in Thailand, and can trace our connection to Thailand back all the way to 1995. We have a deep connection with Thailand, and many of our Japanese engineers have traveled to Thailand on business trips to give technical guidance or for sales. As such, many of our employees have learned Thai and are quite knowledgeable about the Thai people. This makes for an extremely warm and cordial training environment for the Thai trainees. Please tell us about your future training plans. In recent years, domestic sales of automobiles have been on the rise in Indonesia, where the largest automobile market in ASEAN after Thailand is taking shape. Japanese auto manufacturers and suppliers also maintain business footholds in Thailand, and they are expanding their production in Indonesia in conjunction with the expansion of the market there. Many Japanese companies regard Indonesia as their second largest hub for supplying parts globally after Thailand, and so it is growing increasingly important. Therefore, in 2012 we established PT Set Indonesia as an Indonesian subsidiary through joint investment with our Thai subsidiary. Just like with our Thai subsidiary, which has developed to the point where it can dispatch its employees worldwide to provide technical instruction and handle customers, we would like to give the engineers at our Indonesian subsidiary the opportunity to receive training in Japan to boost their technical prowess.Thank you very much for taking the time today to discuss the specics about the success of the Thai engineers supporting your global business and your expansion into Asia centering around Thailand. A scene from specialized technical training for the Thai traineesSurface texturing for Proton of Malaysia being handled by Thai engineersODA-funded Programs

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