For the 53rd time, the Global KAIZEN Convention took place in Kyoto, Japan. At the end of January, representatives from all over the world met and presented their KAIZEN project. Among them: Pedro Soler from SEKISUI Specialty Chemicals, who won the European KAIZEN Convention in 2018.
Every year, SEKISUI CHEMICAL CO., LTD. invites KAIZEN representatives of each area – Japan, North America / Mexico, China, Europe, and Southeast Asia – to the global presentation convention in Japan. This time, a total of 13 teams gave speeches on their KAIZEN activities to share information and ideas.
KAIZEN Activities are an initiative that allows employees in each workplace to form small groups to address various topics such as improvements in quality and productivity and increasing operational efficiency. SEKISUI has set itself the goal of creating a corporate culture of daily improvement in order to increase the growth of each individual, working in the factory building or office.
The convention was started by an opening speech by SEKISUI President Teiji Koge, followed by the three Divisional Company Presidents. All four speakers welcomed the participants, introduced the teams and mentioned how important KAIZEN is for SEKISUI as a global company.
The project poster explained all details at one glance.
After the opening part, the actual presentations started and all teams presented their KAIZEN project in a clear and convincing way. They had also prepared posters on their ideas – in order to raise understanding among the participants, these posters were shown in the hall before the event.
Also Pedro Soler from SEKISUI Specialty Chemicals gave an inspiring presentation on his idea to reduce the steam consumption in the High Purity (HP) Methyl Acetate Production. At the last European KAIZEN convention in Tarragona, Spain, this idea convinced the European jury and gave Pedro the chance to travel to Japan. He was very pleased and honoured to have that opportunity.
Unfortunately, Pedro did not make it under the top three teams. Nevertheless, it was a great experience and he enjoyed meeting KAIZEN supporters from all over the world.
Pedro Soler together with President Koge.
The jury chose the following three winners: The third place went to the Device Materials Group from the Musashi plant. They improved the thickness accuracy of their optical film protection tape. The second place went to the Production Section of the Shiga-Ritto plant – for automating a process which required manual labour in the past and was replaced by professional equipment (ESLON RCP pipe). The first place went to the Quality Control Section from SEKISUI Medical Iwate. They earned their place on the podium by their efforts to improve the rejection rate of Endotoxin tests. They repeated the risk analysis and verification experiment steps until the achieved zero rejection rate.
Great projects and congratulations to the three winning team. In the end it was not about winning though. The event was a nice experience for everyone and every single team can call itself a winner!
