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ISOWA NEWS LETTER
2016/6/1 Vol. 86
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ISOWA NEWS LETTER is a newsletter for the benefit of special customers only. Each month we bring you information about our company and its products ― information you won’t find on our home page or in our catalogs. We hope ISOWA NEWS LETTER will help you feel closer to us.
Hi, everyone. I am Taka, a kind of a burden of the Export Department. I spent my birthday in a plane coming home from overseas the other day. I experienced wonderful hospitality with a cabin announcement wishing me a happy birthday and inviting me to relax with free champagne and an upgrade to business class… But (needless to say), that was no more than a daydream and I got back home safely in economy class.
The word “minimalist” is my favorite word right now. Over the past year or so it has appeared in books, even in Japan, and has become recognized as an alternative lifestyle around the world. It is questionable for me whether this lifestyle has become accepted in other countries but it is gradually gaining traction in Japan.
I have briefly summarized my own thoughts on the minimalist lifestyle below.
– If the acquisition and possession of things that should make our lives richer becomes the primary purpose of life, these possessions actually steal our freedom and become a burden.
– Modern society is overflowing with goods and a lifestyle bound to possessions has become the norm.
– This has a negative effect on us spiritually. For example, negative thought processes that undermine health, such comparing yourself to other people or embracing an unwarranted inferiority complex.
– Therefore, sift out the things that really are necessary and the things that are important, and discard the rest.
– Throwing stuff out returns you to a healthy mental state to live a happy and fruitful life.
That’s the theory (I think…).
I immediately succumbed to minimalism. On opening my closets at home and looking inside, I found all sorts of things I had been saving to use someday. But there was lots of stuff (Hi, there!) I hadn’t used in years. Magazine articles I’d clipped to keep; resumes from my student days; letters from friends and former teachers. All sorts of memories from my youth that I do not want my family to see.
These are things I had been keeping and make up who I am now. However, I hardened my heart and resolved to chuck them out. I photographed things like letters and saved them as digital data before throwing them away. After throwing this stuff out over several days, I really did feel better in mind and body. It felt like the freshness of an early morning walk. I realized that all that unnecessary clutter was the fat around my belly. I think I could be a true minimalist when I get rid of it.
And now, let’s turn to Vol. 86 of the ISOWA NEWS LETTER.
We hope you like this edition.
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New Factory Completion Ceremony and Start of Operation –Part 1/2-
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Hello, everybody. I am Nakai of the Nagoya Domestic Sales Office.
This time I’d like to introduce the recently completed new factory at ISOWA head office. Do you remember what we said about it in ISOWA NEWS LETTER Vol. 71 in March 1, 2015?
Before describing the upgrade of the factory at ISOWA head office, we introduced the construction of the Komaki Factory, the ISOWA’s second factory, as the first stage of the project. And we introduced the concept of the new factory at the ISOWA head office.
The completion ceremony for the first stage, the Komaki Factory, was held on November 7, 2014 and the ceremony for successful completion of the recent upgrade of the head office factory was held on March 18, 2016.
For details about the completion ceremony and the new factory, see the ISOWA blog.
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/h_isowa/e/fb7cca52695fbe1e37935e86e745b966
*In Japanese only
The completion ceremony was planned by members of the History Project, who are well versed in the 96 years of ISOWA history. I think that many ISOWA people were impressed by the chance to participate in such a major event in ISOWA history.
The enthusiasm for the new factory expressed by five staff members from various departments is introduced over two issues, starting below.
◎ Mr. S of the Sales Head Office
From the manufacturer’s point of view, the factory is equivalent to a home for us individuals. And, of course, the staff are like the family.
A factory is an incredibly expensive purchase but it’s a vessel that holds the dreams and aspirations of us and our beloved families. Everyone involved in the new factory from the concept stage to the construction stage reflected on the future of ISOWA and the future of their colleagues. To realize those dreams, they considered how the new factory should be and how they’d like it to be as their home. That is how the new factory turned from an idea to reality.
From now on it is important for us staff, who form the family, to realize each of the dreams that fill the vessel.
As far as I know, I have the fifth strongest conviction of this among ISOWA members. I will start with my striving to turn one of the desire into reality in this new factory.
◎ Mr. S of the Finishing Equipment Department
I hope to hear from customers that Ibis and Falcon machines made in the new factory are even better than before.
We are approaching a total production volume of 100 Ibis machines. I will work hard with my colleagues toward ISOWA’s 100th anniversary celebration in four years’ time and the 100th Ibis machine commemoration, and continue from then on toward the next 100 years and the next 100 machines.
◎ Mr. O of the Technical Services Department
I have visited a lot of customers and on some of the visits I installed machines in a new factory. Each time, I thought enviously what a great thing a new factory is. But now it is me who has the opportunity to work in a new factory at my own company and that makes me really happy. At the same time, I am extremely grateful to the many people who made it possible, including not only everyone at the many companies involved with the construction of the new factory and all the members of the ISOWA project, but also to the successive generations of people who went before me to create ISOWA’s history and traditions. And now the performance stage of the new factory is complete.
But the factory is still empty. I will work my hardest to ship even better machines into the world and forge even more wonderful history and traditions than before.
On a personal level, I now live in a new house. Climbing onto new stages in my work life and private life at the same time seems like a curious coincidence. I’ll work hard to keep growing both publically and privately.
Continued next time!
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Tales of ISOWA People, Continued
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Behind every company, there is a product; in the shadow of every product, there is a person; within every person, there is a history. ISOWA People—the ISOWA employees who shaped ISOWA into the company that it is today.
The ISOWA Person introduced this time is Jiro Minami who oversees the Service Department.
Let us share his story about passing through various departments, dealing with customers from a variety of standpoints, and his relationships with machines.
A Life Spent with Advances in Machines
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| Mr. Minami from his days in sales (right). At the left is Mr. Ota, Managing Director of Sales at the time. At the IGAS show in Tokyo. (June, 1992) |
“The great thing about doing all sorts of jobs is meeting a lot of customers and colleagues.” Mr. Minami says that when he looks back on the years he has worked at ISOWA, it was a happy time that has seen the development of the corrugated paper industry and advances in machines.
He joined ISOWA in 1968. After working in the Nagoya service office for one year, he was offered the chance to transfer to the Tokyo Domestic Sales Office. He was only a teenager at that time, and he couldn’t ask for a better chance than to work in Tokyo.
“It was great to go there while I was still so inexperienced”, he said.
He worked in servicing in Tokyo. The Service Department handled not only repairs but everything about machines from installation to repairs and part sales. However, at first he felt unsure of himself as he’d had no experience with a large-scale installation. He worked with printing machines. The company was already receiving great support as “ISOWA – Specialists for Printer Slotters” and customers’ expectations of the delivered printing machines was higher than expected.
“At that time, introducing a printing machine was a bigger deal for the customer than it is now. We always started installations on Taiankichijitsu, a traditionally auspicious day in the Japanese calendar, and also started commissioning on Taiankichijitsu. That was like a special event for us.”
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Orange-colored Ibis
from President Isowa’s Blog, ISOWA DIARY
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This is a printer that will be installed at a customer’s plant this month. We had the customer over for pre-shipment inspection today.…
▼To read more about it, visit the below website (President Isowa’s blog, ISOWA DIARY)
http://h-isowa.blogspot.jp/2015/08/orange-colored-ibis.html
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