Left
Mr. Tadao Chiba,
CEO

Right
Mr. Tadami Chiba,
Plant Manager

We would like to express our gratitude for this honorable “Nikkan Kyogyo Shimbun Award”, and thank everyone involved.

The piece we submitted this year is an industrial product for the medical field that was ordered 10 years ago as a prototype. When we first received the order, we knew the minute we saw the drawing that it was very difficult, so we asked a manufacturer with high technical capabilities to make the part. The requirements became tighter for the second and third orders to a point where the precision exceeded the sheet-metal territory, and we finally had to say no. The customer seemed to be at a complete loss; they searched around but could not find anyone that could materialize their requests. After struggling for a few days, I sought advice from my father, the founder of our company, who encouraged me to take the plunge and start production since we have nothing to lose – a memorable story of how it all started.

Although we struggled with the production flow it stayed consistent, and we were able to retain the required precision of +-0.03mm for 500mm long. The most challenging part was laser trimming. The forming process could be materialized just as we imagined, but trimming relied mostly on machines, so we tried fast cutting at low-power by relying on our expertise.

Through production, we are now convinced that cultivating inspiration with flexibility and humor without fixating on sheet-metal theory too much will lead to generating new technology, and this technology will become the driving force for creating new products.

The project we submitted is a product we worked on 10 years ago – a proof that the technologies of 10 years ago is still worthy of recognition today. We hope to hone our technical development and skills that can be passed on for 10 or 20 years, and devote ourselves to making social contributions through manufacturing.