by Shun Otsuki
President & Editor in Chief KINSAN FASTENER NEWS
Kishiwada Stainless (Kishiwada City, Osaka Prefecture) will expand its plant this summer to strengthen its post-processing system.
The plant building to be expanded was transferred from Kishiwada Seiko, the group's parent company. Renovation work will begin within this year, and the relocation of equipment is expected to be completed in June of this year. The aim of the plant expansion is to strengthen the post-processing system. The area expansion will allow the company to review the layout and improve the efficiency of post-processing, such as image sorting and packaging after processing.
In recent years, in addition to its strength in high-mix, low-volume production capacity, the company has also strengthened its mass production capacity through automation. In the past few years, the company has increased its mass production capacity for large-diameter products by 1.5 times without adding processing machines, but only through automation.
The overwhelming increase in production efficiency has also been achieved by applying know-how to the processing machines themselves. The company has been concerned with non-standard processing machines, including the development of a high-performance machine modified to its own specifications in collaboration with a machine manufacturer. The company has improved the rolling feed mechanism to eliminate the swing rate and triple the performance of standard machines.
This has improved productivity while reducing the number of rolling machines. The company has established a win-win relationship with the machine manufacturer by becoming a test user and feeding back data to the manufacturer. Managing Director Tomohiro Fukagawa, who has been leading these efforts, compares the relationship between the company and machine manufacturers in the development of high-performance machines to that of an F1 racing team and an automobile manufacturer. President Wataru Yashiki also believes that improving the performance of machines will raise the level of the entire domestic industry to compete with foreign companies.
