Okuma establishes production facility in Changzhou city, China(2/2)

Shortening delivery time for small and medium-sized companies

Okuma establishes machine tool production subsidiary in Changzhou city, China.

The CNC lathes and vertical machining centers, which are popular among SMEs in China, will be assembled. The total investment is 880 million yen. It will be operated on a monthly production of 10 units in October 2019, and the monthly production will be increased to 75 units by 2022.

Three objectives to establish the plant in China

Yoshimaro Hanaki, President and CEO (The posts are at the time of interview; promoted to the executive chairperson from June 21, 2019) explains: “there are three objectives to establish local plants. (1) to provide short delivery time to medium or small sized companies (2) to improve price competitiveness (3) to strengthen engineering capabilities.”

In China, the main customers for GENOS Series is SMEs. “It’s hard for them to make medium-term capital investment plans,” says Hanaki. Okuma judged that it was important to deal with short delivery times by local production.

GENOS Series is currently produced by its subsidiary in Taiwan. If it switches to local production, transport costs and import duties will not be required.

In addition, one of its major objectives is to strengthen the engineering capabilities of local manufacturing site like building automated systems combining machine tool with robots and gantry loaders.

In the Chinese market, the need for automation and labor saving is high due to the long-lasting influence of the one child policy.

75 units of machine tool will be produced per month by 2022

The total investment amount is 880 million yen, Okuma will lease the factory building. The size of the building is about 80×50m. Four kinds of CNC lathes and two kind of vertical MCs are assembled in the new factory.

Okuma will raise procurement ratio gradually, and aims for semi-knock-down production by locally procuring approximately 70% of the main parts by value. The new plant will be operated on a monthly production of 10 units in October 2019 and will be raised to 75 units by 2022.

▶Okuma establishes production facility in Changzhou city, China(1/2)