Columbus, OH

This spring, JETRO Chicago continued to develop the theme of ‘Monozukuri' with its fourth Midwest seminar in the related series beginning in 2007. Despite the crisis in the automotive industry and a faltering macro economy, both in the United States and Japan, the underlying themes of monozukuri and sustaining a focus on the mid and long term growth for the automotive suppliers were successfully conveyed to attendees. The Columbus, Ohio, seminar on May 28^th, featured the following highlights:

The Honorable Ted Strickland, Governor of Ohio, delivered the opening remarks to the luncheon keynote address. Governor Strickland pointed to the importance of collaboration in the automotive industry to sustain and grow the advanced manufacturing communities of Ohio, the Midwest, and Japan. He recognized the importance of sustaining a culture of manufacturing talent in Ohio as critically important in terms of remaining globally competitive.

LUNCHEON ADDRESS: Jud McKinley, Executive Vice President, IRN, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan

Mr. McKinley provided a taut outlook for the automotive industry, the macro economy and importantly, the implications of restructuring on the supplier base. Mr. McKinley identified positive economic indicators that may, just may, be indicative of a recovery. He also explained the one vehicle platform that will not come back. Mr. McKinley explained that a better second half of 2009 is likely with sustained growth in vehicle production beginning in 2009 through 2014, however, individual OEMs will fare differently; expect a new Big 4. Also, issues and opportunities for the suppliers were shared. And one element remains true – suppliers embracing the concepts of Monozukuri will succeed in the global automotive industry.

SEMINAR: KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: Yoshihiro Saka, President, DENSO Manufacturing Tennessee (DMTN), "Monozukuri is Hitozukuri – Introducing Human Development Program at DENSO Mexico.”

Mr. Saka provided a detailed analysis focused on how DENSO Mexico (DEMX) made a dream plant come true at DENSO Mexico S.A. DE C.V. This concept of a dream plant was initiated by intensively applying human development skills and collaboration throughout the facility that achieved greater quality benchmarks when compared to DENSO's other global operations including Japan.

DENSO Mexico did this by using tools that worked well in Japan, especially unifying management and production teams in taking an ownership role in creating a pyramid template to reach numerous targeted benchmarks for plant efficiency, customer return, safety, productivity, scrap, lead time and inventory discrepancy. These benchmarks targets were measured against the highest achievable targets from DENSO's global operations. In time, DENSO Mexico met or surpassed these existing benchmarks.

Mr. Saka explained that any effort to meet these benchmarks could only be undertaken after the DENSO SPIRIT took root within the mangers and associates' mindset. The DENSO SPIRIT enabled human skill formation that created a deeper and richer form of collaboration within the company. This process focused on the elements of foresight, credibility, and collaboration (DENSO SPIRIT) by the factory's local managers and associates as a way to achieve and then surpass DENSO's global benchmarks. It took eight months of training involving 3,300 people, which included 100% involvement by all associates to make the DENSO SPIRIT part of both their lives and work. The result; intensive human skill formation hitozukuri made monozukuri and the Dream Plant a reality.

PANEL SESSION: Keys to Successful Supplier Collaboration - Moderator, Roy Verstraete, President and CEO, Anchor Danly, Windsor, Ontario.

Hachiro Ohkura, Manager, F.tech North America, Inc., "Cultural Background for Success in North America, Monozukuri of F.TECH Group."

Mr. Ohkura indicated that a Wall of Culture between Japan and other countries has traditionally impeded deep collaboration among manufacturing technology companies. Each company is steeped in cultural layers of values reflected in labor - management relationship, working conditions, intellectual property and languages which resulted in unique business cultures in the TransAtlantic and TransPacific areas.

Monozukuri too has undergone evolutionary change in Japan as is now believed to be defined in how companies harness knowledge and knowhow into a perfect synthesis of product design and utility.

An important element in obtaining Monozukuri rests with creating a culture where management respects Gemba (the place where value is created; in this case the factory floor). Simply said, a company's associates can and will detect problems and devise solutions if they are empowered to do so.

Mr. Ohkura indicated there are two types of competitiveness within a company. The first is a surface layer that is only observed from the outside, i.e., cost, delivery and quality of parts are typical surface layer attributes. The second layer is found deep inside the company, not observable from the outside. This second layer consists of i.e., overall equipment effectiveness, productivity, research and development. Problems arise when management strengthens the surface layer without considering the cost it may have on the layer in-depth. Effects of the 5S, Kaizen and the F.tech company profile were also discussed.

Jeff Cope, Director of International Sales, Atlantic Tool & Die Company (ATD), Strongsville, Ohio

The Atlantic Tool & Die Co.,(ATD) has been a Tier One Supplier to Honda of America Mfg., Inc., for more than two decades with Mr. Cope presenting his company's own Monozukuri. ATD has won numerous supplier awards from Japanese OEMs and Tier One Suppliers, including 17 awards from Honda of America Mfg., Inc from 1988~2008.

He indicated that ATD had identified eight barriers to quality; such as a lack of "jointness” with associates and within management, or that there was too much ownership of ideas among departments. Another barrier was a short term orientation which was resulting in a tendency to lose momentum. The ATD process for quality / process improvement , which began in 1986, was fully discussed. Mr. Cope indicated that, "we knew that we had to improve in order to continue to bring value to our customers.”

Mr. Cope said that Honda periodically provided great assistance to ATD in refining process improvements, which became internalized on a company wide basis as the ATD Way, their own version of Monozukuri. Themes underpinning the ATD Way are; (1) every error has an inherent cost; (2) no defects are acceptable; (3) every job shall be organized and planned with the goal of no error in mind. Mr. Cope illustrated the ATD Way by citing numerous process improvements in the areas of die repair; waiting on QC; empty scrap; and the amount of time needed for start-up. Honda has benchmarked ATD in the areas of reaction time, data accuracy and associate awareness.

Jim Diederich, Vice President of Marketing, Assembly & Test Worldwide, Inc., Dayton, Ohio, "A RoadMap to American Transplant Success.”

Assembly and Test Worldwide, Inc. (ATW) provides production systems to multinational automotive OEMs, including Japanese as well as numerous Tier One Suppliers. ATW was the first capital equipment company to speak during the series of Monozukuri programs. Mr. Diederich carefully identified the process of working with Japanese OEMs as a "pull system” and not a "push system.” He indicated that the Japanese automotive community is primarily a culture of engineers not salesmen and provided an insightful lessons learned theme for interacting with Japanese manufacturers.

Panel Session Moderator: Roy Verstraete, President and CEO, Anchor Danly, Windsor, Ontario

Mr. Verstraete indicated that Monozukuri is a common practice of all manufacturing companies and is not limited to solely Japanese or North American. He gave an interesting analysis regarding how Japanese firms utilized the quality methodologies uses by Dr. W. Edwards Deming as a catalyst for improvements programs.

This summary was provided by the JETRO Chicago, Business Development team, which is making every effort to develop enabling programs that accelerate collaboration between North American and Japanese manufacturing companies. If you have any questions regarding JETRO Chicago's Monozukuri program series please contact Kevin Kalb, Project Coordinator at 312-832-6023 or at Kevin_Kalb@jetro.go.jp.

Organizer:
JETRO Chicago

Supporting Organizations:
Japan-America Society of Central Ohio (JASCO)
Ohio Department of Development (ODOD)
Japan Auto Parts Industries Association (JAPIA)
Original Equipment Suppliers Association (OESA)
Precision Metalforming Association (PMA)
Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT)

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