AOTS Journal 2018 AUTUMN No.13 (ENGLISH)

4/18

JOURNAL2To begin with, let me ask Mr. Sakoda, Executive Vice President, on your path to explore overseas markets and human resources development.(1) Please elaborate on your overseas development as well as application of the AOTS scheme.We, along with the growing need to procure local parts at local markets by Japanese-afliated car companies, started our business expansion in China rst, and are now doing business in six countries: China, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Mexico.As the metal die-and-mold business is being performed by customer orders of diversied but smaller lot size production, it takes a long time to get full-edged technical staff and thus we understand our corporate future depends on nurturing our personnel in relevant countries in a more efcient manner. Being a small business corporation, we needed to satisfy these requirements with limited nancial resources while considering language and cultural barriers; then we found the training-in-Japan scheme by AOTS. The very rst technical trainees we hosted were two people from Indonesia who had been unable to converse in the Japanese language at all when they arrived in Japan, but after their language training at AOTS Kansai Kenshu Center, we were surprised to see their advancement in the language as they became able to communicate in simple Japanese at the beginning of their in-company training. Following this rst experience, we have been supported by AOTS every year with our Chinese and Indian trainees. As for our Mexican project, we gave up inviting Mexican trainees due to the geographical distance and instead we decided to nurture the local personnel by dispatching instructors from Japan by making use of the AOTS Expert Dispatch Program. (2)We heard as your unique HRD policy , you aim at making ‘MS Humans’ with ‘MS Kintaro-Ame’ and ‘Taro-cultivation-style HRD’; could you elaborate on this?In this company as a group including our overseas afliates, non-Japanese staff account for more than a half of our personnel and here in this corporate headquarters in Japan, almost 30 percent of the personnel is from overseas. First, ‘MS Kintaro-Ame’ is a popular candy bar in Japan in which you can get the same face design wherever you cut it, so we wish to have the same kind of idea with our personnel, regardless of nationality, to get them to share the same values. I don’t mean A Case of Training Program for Human Resource Development by AOTSMS Mold Co., Ltd.MS Mold has been using the AOTS training scheme in Japan for the past three years since 2016. As of writing this article, two AOTS trainees from India are undertaking OJT training at the company while the company is dispatching its engineers to Mexico as technical experts from this year.MS Mold specializes in production of molding dies for automotive weather strips. In accordance with the needs of client companies, MS undertakes production of dies and molds for weather strips comprehensively including their design. Thriving on their technical edge of being a world leader in the three-dimensional processing of dies and molds, the company is aggressively exploring domestic and international markets.The technical level of its employees is extremely high as proved by its designation of ‘Aichi Master Craftsmen’ for two of them as well as three employees designated as Die and Mold Masters by the prestigious metal die association in Japan. The company is getting attention in Aichi as an emerging manufacturer of metal dies and molds.The Journal visited the company and interviewed Mr. Kunihiro Sakoda, Executive Vice President, Mr. Ma Shengchao at the Administration Department and two Indian trainees undertaking OJT.Head ofce: Kiyosu, AichiFounded: July 1971Capitalization: JPY38.11 millionLine of business: Design and manufacturing of rubber dies and molds/ dies and molds for weather stripsBuilding of head officeAiming at being plain good, not just a big company, by focusing on being a corporation that educates and produces human resources: