2014

Mr. Tsuyoshi Ishida and Mr. Toshiaki Isomura are part of the Production Engineering Section, a core part of Minebea's manufacturing operations. The section builds production lines, supplies mass production equipment and molds to manufacturing sites, and develops new methods to rationalize the manufacturing processes. "When we design production lines for new product models, we collaborate with the engineering departments and quality management departments to build processes from scratch," says Mr. Isomura. "Then, we monitor manufacturing sites after mass production starts and make improvements based on feedback from the sites. There are a lot things to worry about, but there's also a lot of enjoyment in the process of resolving problems."

Unforeseen problems often occur, posing challenges to meeting severe quality and delivery deadlines. Mr. Isomura admires the speed with which Mr. Ishida, his boss and the manager of the Production Engineering Section, makes decisions when confronting problems. "I have a tendency to brood over problems to the point where I can't act," says Mr. Isomura. "With their long experience, my superiors take a very practical approach of just trying new solutions without fear of failure." Mr. Ishida smiles wryly. "Even if a decision ends in failure, if we act quickly enough we have the time to go back and fix it again. Most of all, I've found that our initial instincts often hit the mark. We rely on intuition based on long experience. It's important for us to value that intuition."