Visited the 27th Karakuri Kaizen Kufu Exhibition (Kaizen Ingenuity)

In early November, I went to Port Messe Nagoya (Minato Ward, Nagoya City), the venue of the exhibition, to inspect the 27th Karakuri Kaizen Kufu Exhibition 2022, which was held in person for the first time in three years.
This exhibition has been held since 1994 by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance as a place to exhibit and introduce various Karakuri Kaizen® examples, ranging from simple examples based on a change of ideas to elaborate examples combining multiple Karakuri mechanisms.

Our group has continuously exhibited our in-house products since the 20th exhibition.
We hope to motivate our employees to improve their creativity and ingenuity by having people outside of the company view their work.
This year, our group exhibited a total of three works from our three domestic manufacturing bases in Komaki, Saitama, and Yamagata.

Komaki Plant exhibited a work that raises products in the process to the worker's hand for the purpose of improving walking and carrying losses.
Saitama Plant exhibited a work that utilized the principle of leverage to enable one-shot loading of products from a product basket into a net for the purpose of improving work efficiency.

Furthermore, Sumi-Riko Yamagata created a karakuri that utilized the elasticity of a spring to move products to the operator's hand for the purpose of improving heavy muscle work and working posture.
I was encouraged to see the presenters presenting their work so well, despite their nervousness.
At the exhibition, I, together with the head of the Monozukuri Support Office, also looked around at the works of other companies.
With more than 200 examples on display, it was clear that this exhibition also serves as a place for manufacturing companies to learn from each other.

In addition to conventional examples of productivity improvement, there were also works that were carbon neutral and "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I)" conscious, and I learned that each company is sensitive to the changing times and is quickly responding to them.
I believe that such steady improvement activities are one of the sources of corporate strength. Our group will continue to make ongoing efforts for Karakuri Kaizen.

Therefore, I look forward to your further creativity and ingenuity.

* “Karakuri Kaizen" is a registered trademark of the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance.