Journey to Japan
"Our journey to Japan began with an early morning departure to the airport in Vienna, from where we were supposed to fly via Munich directly to Osaka. Unfortunately, we had to deal with complications in the form of a flight delay to Munich (which forced us to change our plan and subsequently fly via Shanghai, China) and the subsequent loss of one of our luggage. However, everything had a happy, almost fairytale ending - the lost luggage was delivered directly to our hotel in Tokyo on the very day of the conference.
Despite these initial difficulties, we all remained positive throughout our journey and after almost 30 hours on the road, we reached our first destination in Himeji. There was a representative from our parent company Nippon Kayaku waiting for us. He accompanied us to our hotel and took us for a traditional Japanese dinner. We had the opportunity to taste a number of Japanese specialties and meet representatives from other companies within the Nippon Kayaku Group. After the dinner, we visited the Himeji Castle, the dominant feature of the city of Himeji, which was beautifully lit at night.
The following day we had a unique opportunity to visit the Himeji production plant, where we took a detailed tour with explanations of the production of MGG, gas generators, inflators and, upon our request, also the production of GTMS. We were also introduced to newly emerging projects for the production of small parachutes for larger drones. After a detailed tour and explanation of the individual production phases, we took the Shinkansen to Tokyo, where the following day the Kaizen conference awaited us at the Nippon Kayaku headquarters.
In the morning, we took the Tokyo subway to the Nippon Kayaku headquarters, which is incredibly extensive (it consists of 13 lines and is one of the most sophisticated systems in the world), yet surprisingly easy to navigate. On behalf of KSE, we presented an improvement proposal at the conference on the topic of Effective use of helium in leak testing in the GTMS production process. Our innovation was a great success. It immediately aroused interest not only among colleagues from the headquarters, but also among subsidiaries in KMY and KSM. We have already received requests to share details of our project, which makes us very happy and motivates us for further development.
The Kaizen conference was full of interesting ideas and suggestions that demonstrated the creativity and efforts of Nippon Kayaku employees around the world. In addition to our project, 19 other topics were presented, for example, changing the method of transporting products, checking the pin position, reducing electricity consumption and CO₂ emissions, improving QR code reading, or increasing the production of cancer drugs. The presentation of the last project was followed by a closing ceremony which symbolically ended the official part of the program. After the ceremony, we had the opportunity to meet other colleagues, discuss the details of their projects, and get to know each other better in an informal way. This was a great opportunity to establish new contacts and exchange our experiences.
We take nothing but positives, unique experiences and knowledge from our business trip to Japan. We had the opportunity to get to know Japanese culture, history, nature, and excellent gastronomy. We were impressed not only by the beautiful temples and traditional gardens, but also by the incredible willingness and warmth of the local people. All these moments confirmed that Japan is a country we would like to return to one day.
In conclusion, we would like to thank Nippon Kayaku for the great organization and we look forward to further cooperation, which will certainly bring further successful projects and innovations."
Lukáš Kramný, Petr Daněk, Jakub Kopecký
