2012

The manufacture of miniature ball bearings requires extremely delicate and sophisticated precision, and simply using the same materials and manufacturing equipment does not guarantee that uniform products will be produced. Minebea has introduced a proprietary "warp and weft" approach to ensure that all of its eight manufacturing plants worldwide produce a uniform quality of products.

The "warp" in this system is the vertical examination of all the manufacturing processes along the machine direction by each plant manager to ensure thorough manufacturing management on the basis of Minebea's long-accumulated integrated manufacturing know-how. The "weft" in this system is the dispatch of managers for each of the manufacturing processes from the Karuizawa Plant, the "mother plant," to the seven overseas plants to ensure with an objective eye that processes are horizontally deployed throughout the world. One of the features of this system is the frequent visits by the Karuizawa Plant managers to the overseas plants, much as if they were visiting a plant next door, to oversee and train local employees. The combination of this warp and weft enables Minebea to achieve a manufacturing system which guarantees uniform products and high productivity.

The implementation of uniform product manufacturing may appear as though Japanese methods are being thrust unilaterally on overseas sites. At Minebea, however, we have established basic policies of respecting the culture and customs of local communities to the extent possible when localizing our product manufacturing. We actively promote local employees to management positions and operate local plants on the basis of locally developed management and employees. We believe that transplanting Japanese methods to local communities overseas is best achieved by customizing the methods to fit the local community to the extent possible. This enables knowhow to be implemented overseas in a relatively short time.