Manufacturing in wealthy residential area Tokyo: advantages and disadvantages（2/2）

▶Manufacturing in wealthy residential area Tokyo: advantages and disadvantages（1/2）

Human resources development is the foundation of manufacturing

Masayuki Fujino, representative director says that one of advantages in Meguro ward is the number of visitors. The headquarters of major manufacturers are located in the south of Shinjuku ward, Shinagawa ward, and Minato ward, in Tokyo 23 wards.

The head office has product planning and development department.

It is easy to visit the office because Meguro ward is well located. They can exchange opinions with visitors. It is possible to propose a machining method which leads to shorten process and reduce the manufacturing cost, which is beneficial to both visitors and Fujiseiki.

On the other hand, there are some disadvantages and the first one is to secure human resources.

Masayuki Fujino laughs, “companies in Meguro ward recruit people through public employment service in Shibuya ward called ‘city for young people.’ There are many appointments to apparels, designs, and IT-related companies. A staff in public employment service said ‘there is less than two percent of people who want to work in manufacturing.’

Therefore, Fujiseiki widened the recruitment range throughout Tokyo, Kanto neighborhood prefectures and the whole country. Many employees are from Kanto region such as Saitama prefecture and Tohoku region such as Akita and Iwate prefecture.

“We just set programs and press buttons to measure the accuracy of machined components in current metalworking industry. We would like them to taste fun of manufacturing, planning, designing and machining it with their hands if they work in manufacturing industry.” Masayuki Fujino says.

Therefore, Fujiseiki has training program for young employees entitled “Fuji School” to learn foundation in metalworking at a monthly pace. One of them was to make metallic wine glass.

There were some participants who bent wine glass because of machining error.

But all participants kept their masterpieces carefully after training course.

Since then, young employees changed their mind and worked on their daily work.

“We learned that young employees like manufacturing. They just didn’t have opportunities to learn how to enjoy it,” Masayuki Fujino also learned.Fujiseiki is also active in contributing to local communities.

It has passed 21 years since Fujiseiki accepted tour for elementary school students. The cumulative number exceeded 7,200 students.

“There’s no factory in this residential area. We want them to learn manufacturing.” Masayuki Fujino said. It seems that employees also have changed after they accepted students.

They started to work voluntarily. They started to say “we shouldn’t accumulate materials because students visit here.” and “we have to make a good manuscript to make students understand.”

This experience led to a stronger belief that “manufacturing is a human resource development.” Masayuki Fujino continues to make effort to educate employees.

▶Manufacturing in wealthy residential area Tokyo: advantages and disadvantages（1/2）