‘Let there be light and there was light’
For two weeks in January, I was in Japan, my first of many visits there. I was a participant in the Unipart Tour of the Japanese automotive industry. Ken Edwards, Personnel of Jaguar was present. As was the Jaguar Manufacturing Director.
It was a long flight over the pole to Anchorage, Alaska. Stop to refuel, then fly south, avoiding Russian airspace, past Korea to Japan.
We were to visit Honda vehicle assembly plants, Toyota Autobody and importantly, a number of 1st Tier suppliers to Honda, Toyota and Nissan.
Japan is a foreign country. By that I mean, very foreign. Gloriously so.
I was struck by the precision of everything. Trains run on time, all the time!
Everywhere was scrupulously clean. Tokyo. Trains. Stations. Factories! Order everywhere you looked. Japan simply reflects the people. That's how they are.
Factory tour after factory tour left me awestruck.
The order. The cleanliness. The near total absence of stock, work-in-progress.The automation. The teamwork was on another level; the abundance of skills at all levels; the dedication of the workforce at all levels. The clean work-wear. All Honda factory workers wore white. The maintenance of Standard Operations (to the procedure by the book).The young workforce, the average age of Honda employees was 26 years old. Flexible manufacturing techniques, such as quick tool changes. Seconds-minutes, not hours! Just-in-time production with quality and productivity levels achieved. Constant improvement by all, continuously.
It was space age stuff. I was on another industrial planet.
I described it at the time, as akin to visiting the cinema with the largest cinema screen with full quadraphonic sound, to view Star Wars. Suddenly, Luke Skywalker reached out from the screen and invited me to step into the future!
I had seen the future. I was invigorated. Illuminated. Motivated!