Category: JBPP

Day 1

All 16 delegates from around the world arrived at scheduled.

After a lively opening reception dinner on Saturday, delegates enjoy a days guided sightseeing in beautiful weather on Sunday.

The programme began on Monday with an interesting lecture on the principles of TPM, followed by a visit to Nittan valve where delegates were able to visit the shop floor to see examples of TPM deployment.

 

 

Day 2

Today we visited two companies, Sanden, Yattajima Plant and Shindegen, Okabe plant.

Sanden manufacture a range of compressors for automotive applications. They are a winner of the JIPM TPM world class award. After an office presentation on a Kaizen project to improve OEE, we toured the plant and saw some excellent examples of TPM deployment. The use of activity boards and the use of dedicated shop floor training areas were particularly impressive.

We then visited Shindegen. A much smaller company than Sanden, manufacturing a range of electronic parts for motorcycles and cars, they demonstrate an excellent involvement of all employees in Kaizen activities. It’s the first company I have visited where you have to remove shoes to enter! We were shown a number of shop floor presentations by operators who had designed, made and implemented Poka-Yoka devices. The management had set up a workshop for construction of devices. Once an operator has had the concept approved, they were given time to turn the idea into reality. All those presenting showed tremendous passion and were proud to demonstrate their ideas in practice.

Now all look forward to day 3 where we visit two plants in the process industry that have won JIPM TPM awards

 

Day 3

Today we visited two companies in the process industries, Asahi Glass and J-Oils Mills.

Asahi Glass is located in Chiba and they manufacture a range of chemical products for a range of industry sectors. They embarked on the TPM journey in 2008, with an aim to “become an ideal plat with zero loss”

After an office presentation by the Plant Manager on their TPM implementation plans and activities to date, we toured the large facility to see examples of TPM deployment, in particular Autonomous Maintenance (AM) and Focused Improvement (FI). The plant demonstrated an excellent commitment to improve, driven from the Plant Manager. As well of showing examples of TPM deployment in the production areas, two very good examples of Kaizen improvement were shown related to improvement in administration processes.

After a lunch on the “floating Island” in Tokyo bay, we moved to J-Oils Mills Yokohama plant which manufacturers a range of cooking oils and margarine products. They kicked off their TPM activities in 2005 and achieved the JIPM excellence award in 2009. The delegates broke into two groups and toured the production site, seeing some excellent examples of TPM deployment.

We then experienced the delights of Tokyo traffic on the way back to the hotel for a restful evening, ready for an early start on day 4!

 

Day 4

An early start!

We left the hotel in Shibuya at 6.00am for the bullet train trip to Nagoya.

Arriving at Nagoya exactly on time (to the second!), we travelled to Toyota City to tour their Tsutsumi Plant. After an introduction on the history of Toyota we toured the plant, seeing the weld and assembly areas. We then had a very interesting debate on the development happening within the Japan automotive industry and within Toyota.

After lunch we travelled to the Denso “Gikan” (education and training) centre. The centre was established in 2001 focused on “Mono-Zukuri” (combined education of theory and practice”

The centre provides a wide range of technical training and certification to employees working both within Japan and globally. We had the opportunity to tour the training facility to see a wide range of training facilities. Delegates were both excited and depressed at the same time. Excited to see amazing training facilities, total commitment to improvement and structured engineering training programmes, provided to school leavers through to qualified engineers. Depressed that the facilities were unlikely to be matched any company outside Japan!

We then returned to Nagoya for an overnight stay.

 

Day 5

After the previous day early start time for a leisurely breakfast! after which we travelled to the Toyota museum in Nagoya.

The Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology was established in June, 1994, in Sako, Nagoya Nishi Ward. The museum’s mission was to systematically introduce the history of Japanese manufacturing technology to those who will be responsible for its future development. The museum exhibits textile machinery, which was one of the core industries that helped build modern Japan, and the evolving world of automobile engineering that continues to drive the country’s development.

We had the opportunity to see some of the 4000 exhibition pieces and dynamic displays of original equipment, actual demonstrations by operators, instructive videos, and more.

After a quick lunch at the station (some delegates took the option of McDonalds!) we returned to Tokyo by bullet train, passing the snow covered Mount Fuji.

We then had a lecture from Professor Aoki from the Meiji University on the “Key Factors for successful Kaizen implementation.

The programme was then concluded at the farewell reception at an Italian restaurant with a fantastic view over the city. Delegates had time to reflect on the week.

Steve Burke from Sunseeker International summarised the feelings of the group by saying:

“An awesome week. A great experience in many more ways than I could ever have imagined!”

The Industry Forum team met on Saturday to start the planning of the 2013 programme, watch this space for more details!