Oki Electric Introduces Lead-free Soldering Qualification Recognition Program to its Plant in China

[photo] Scene of technical training

Tokyo, Japan, March 10, 2005 -- Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6703) today announced it has introduced its Lead-free Soldering Qualification Recognition Program to Oki Electric Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (OSZ), Oki's ATM and printer production plant in China. This program qualifies lead-free soldering technicians who are required to have higher degree of professional skills than conventional lead soldering. OSZ became Oki's first overseas plant to adopt this internal program, after Oki's introduction in Japan in December 2003.

"We are planning to introduce this recognition program to other overseas subsidiaries and educate specialists with professional skills required for lead-free products," said Harushige Sugimoto, Chairman and President of Manufacturing Service Company at Oki Electric. "By obtaining such skills we believe we can enhance the ability to provide environmental-friendly products and achieve early realization of lead-free products for the overseas market."

For electronic equipment, lead is used in solders when mounting components on a circuit board. Because lead is one of the six chemical substances included in the EU's directive, it is necessary to achieve lead-free soldering. Lead-free soldering has a high melting point, which demands technicians to work with high temperature in a short period of time, and because it works with high temperature, it can destroy components that are vulnerable to heat resulting to be a defective soldering. Thus, lead-free soldering technicians are required to have higher technical skills than conventional lead soldering.

Oki introduced this program to OSZ because in order to respond to lead-free soldering, OSZ had various processes to understand, such as working manually with components that are vulnerable to heat and that need repair or failure analysis. An instructor was dispatched from Oki Electric to OSZ in December 2004 to educate 7 employees at OSZ and conducted the first qualification test, in which all of them succeeded in acquiring the qualification and received the recognition award in March 2005. Technicians will be evaluated on 100 items in total and receive the qualification in 5 stages based on their total score. OSZ plans to educate the 7 employees to become an instructor level.

About Oki Electric Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.

Established on July 5, 2001 in Shenzhen, China, OSZ is a 100% subsidiary of Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. With over 600 employees, OSZ takes charge of manufacturing and sales of ATMs, banking terminals, and printers in China.

About Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.

Founded more than a century ago in 1881, Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. is Japan's first telecommunications manufacturer, with its headquarter in Tokyo, Japan. With the corporate vision, "Oki, Network Solutions for a Global Society," Oki Electric provides top-quality products, technologies and solutions to its customers through its telecommunications systems, information systems and electronic devices segments. All three segments are integrated into one effective organization that functions as a collective force to create exciting new products and technologies, including information and telecom converged solutions. Through its business activities, Oki Electric satisfies a spectrum of customer needs in various markets. Visit Oki's global web site at http://www.oki.com/.

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