Plant Manager Interview | Kaga Plant | Sodick Kaga Plant | Sodick News Letter

Factory VisitSodick Kaga Plant

Plant Manager Interview

The Kaga Plant is One of Sodick's Key Facilities.
Its Advanced Technologies Meets the Needs for a Wide Range of Clients.

The level of trust in Sodick's manufacturing skills across a range of industries is now so high that people say, "If there's something you can't make, talk to Sodick!".
We talked with Plant Manager Mr. Katsuyoshi Edoya to find out what sort of place the Kaga Plant is.

First of all, please tell us about the features of the Kaga Plant.: As a manufacturing base for Sodick, the Kaga Plant consolidates all the injection molding-related departments and divisions, from development and parts procurement through to manufacturing and quality control. The plant is capable of responding quickly to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers as they deal with modern-day demand for lighter and more compact plastic components. And because our manufacturing functions include large-scale machining facilities, we also cooperate with machining plants in overseas factories, ensuring that the same level of product quality is maintained globally.

What are the main items produced by the Kaga Plant?

常に相談できる環境がソディックの想像力の源

As well as injection molding machines, the Kaga Plant also produces food machinery and ultra-high-precision machining centers, electron beam machines, linear motors, CNC units and Metal 3D Printer. In terms of injection molding machines specifically, we manufacture the 12 main horizontal V-LINE® models and the 10 main vertical V-LINE® models, along with equipment such as silicone molding machines and magnesium molding machines. We also produce an extensive number of variations of our injection and plasticization machines. In the future, we plan to expand into areas such as machining centers and Metal 3D Printer other than injection molding machines.

What is it about Sodick that inspires such trust among customers?: I think it's the fact that we can craft machines to meet our customers' needs. For example, we can build customized machines for each customer that will do things a standard machine can't. In addition, we have a support system that gives customers confidence that our machines will provide excellent precision and quality over the long period.

Why is it that you can build machines with such high levels of precision and quality?

Team work is a great deal for us and for manufacturing

Technical expertise, readiness, and teamwork, I think these three points come in for our manufacturing. Because we have a history of manufacturing machines for a wide range of industries, Sodick is familiar with many different fields. When we meet with customers, we try to thoroughly listen to what our customers need and try our best to find ways to meet their needs. By doing so, it enables us to develop proposals that involve taking techniques from one industry and applying them in a different industry. We also work to develop an environment that stimulates and facilitates active exchanges of product information among our employees in a friendly manner. Our enormous capacity for teamwork is built on relationships of genuine trust.

What's your motto for manufacturing and when are you pleased with your work?

Your heart and soul is essential in manufacturing machines

At the Kaga Plant, all the processes from development through to quality control are consistent. I do each process thinking of the next processing step will be done by our customer, not our colleagues. Employees are called upon to care about what they manufacture and be conscious of what they pass along to the next process. In this way, we manufacture to a high quality at every processing step, rather than relying just on the final inspection. My gratifying moment is when a new product appears in the media. It's particularly pleasing to know that our products made a contribution to that product.

Please tell us about the future of the Kaga Plant.

Want to design machines that are also environmentally friendly

In the future, we plan to produce machines such as die-sinker EDMs, wire-cut EDMs, machining centers and Metal 3D Printer at the plant. And where there are aspects of production that can be left to machines, we plan to leave them to the machines. For example, by running the plant through the night without lights, we can reduce our energy consumption, which is good for the environment, and boosts our productivity. We're also looking into ways to shift to more environmentally friendly operation using energy sources such as solar and geothermal power. We call this the "Future Factories Project" and we are now working towards making it a reality.