Photo 1 Honjo plant of OKI

I frequently visited the manufacturing plant located in Honjo City of Saitama (photo 1).

Despite the little time we had, there was the need to manufacture the first lot. Honjo is OKI's plant manufacturing communication devices and it was the first time the plant would be handling LAN and PC related parts. Parts and testing devices had to be created from scratch. The manufacturing schedule was skin-tight, with no leeway whatsoever. The immediate response from the plant was very skeptical. . And we didn't blame them. We were trying to fit in a schedule for production using new technology, parts and materials; all in an extremely short delivery period.

It was Assistant Manager Mr. Kiuchi and Ms. Nozawa of the Plant Planning Department who saved us. We were able to convey our enthusiasm and they welcomed us with open doors. The schedule was so tight that the design and manufacturing had to proceed at the same time. I remember making apologies for a number of change requests during the manufacturing process. Although Assistant Manager Mr. Kiuchi and Ms. Nozawa seemed troubled, they did not express it. And they responded to our needs with professionalism.

Perhaps due to the build-up of tension, I became sick at one point. It must have been pretty bad since I received an email from Ms. Nozawa to cheer me up. It said, "Hang in there." It kept me going.

We're almost there. We just have to push on. All members of development, plant and sales felt the same. In December, we finally reached the stage of reliability tests using mass production models. All we needed was an okay at the shipment judgment meeting. We're almost done!