What's Up?
 by Ron Mager, Machinery Systems, Inc. President & COO |
In a word – TRAVEL! In the past three months, I traveled out of town seven times. This does not exactly qualify me as a Road Warrior who spends four nights every week in a hotel, but for me this is quite a bit. Some trips were overnight, but others ranged up to eights days. Why so much travel? After all, most of are customers are local. Two reasons: Mazak and our Trade Association – the AMTDA. I originally thought I would write about both Mazak
and the AMTDA in this column, but there is so much to write about
related to Mazak that I will have to save the AMTDA news until the next
MS"eye"Watch. |
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Mazak held their annual Distributor Meeting in early May in conjunction with the Grand Opening of their eighth North American Technology Center in Waterloo, Canada (just outside Toronto). When you step back and think about, it’s truly amazing how Mazak continues to make significant investments not only in their factories (more about this later), but also in their ability to support customers. MSI – Illinois was also honored with an award at the Distributor Dinner for selling the most Advantec products (including the Nexus line) of any distributor in North America. I could not have been more proud of our Illinois Mazak salesmen. Although the Distributor Meeting was a great experience as always, from a personal perspective the Mazak Japan MIMTA trip was even more significant. What’s a MIMTA trip? MIMTA stands for “Mazak International Manufacturing Technology Association” and started in the eighties when Mazak organized trips to Japan so that U.S. job shops and manufacturers could see for themselves how the Japanese became so successful in manufacturing. The format of MIMTA trips has evolved over the years. This trip included visits to Mazak’s World Technology Center as well as four Mazak factories. There were a total of 73 visitors from the U.S. on the trip. I accompanied ten MSI customers representing five companies. I could go on forever with various details of the trip, but given my commitment to keep my columns short, I will limit myself to the following highlights:
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Minokomo Plant #2 – When I visited Japan in April of 2006, I
learned that Mazak had begun construction of a second Minokomo
Cyber-factory to address capacity and floor space issues. Just over a
year later, this 425,000 square foot manufacturing plant is in full
production! Every inch of floor space was in use for machining,
testing and assembly with automation everywhere. If everything didn’t
look so brand-new, you would think this factory was in operation for
years. But wait, there’s more. Mazak is currently constructing a new
Spindle Factory and World Parts Center in Minokomo as well. These guys
are amazing! |
 Left to right: Mike Nowicki & Jerry Powers (Kingsbury), Peter Addy (Addy West) , Ron Mager (MSI), Tom Pahlas (Northstar Aerospace, Inc.). |
Logistics and Hospitality – In typical Mazak fashion, they did things right on this trip. There was an incredible amount of planning that went into putting this thing together. Every day was planned to the minute and packed with activity with Mazak personnel escorting us every step of the way. And, we were treated like royalty.
Every event was nothing but first class and every dinner was hosted by
either Mr. Terry Yamazaki, Tom Yamazaki or Tak Yamazaki and other Senior
Mazak personnel. |
 Left to Right: Marty & Tammy Mitchell, Paul & Pam Hartz from Mack Tool and Engineering. |
Customer Response – As this was my first MIMTA, I was curious as
to how our customers would react. Would they be impressed? Overwhelmed
by the travel? Would they learn anything? As we toured the factories,
I tried to bounce around and spend time with each one. I could see
every customer looking carefully and thinking hard about whether they
could apply any of the Mazak philosophies and manufacturing techniques
to their operation. Based on my subsequent conversations, everyone left
Japan with new ideas to think about and new concepts to implement. |
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Relationships – As you may know from my previous columns, because
of my personality it’s tough for me to get to know people and vice
versa. Well, I got to know the customers form this trip pretty darn
well. We spent virtually all of our time together and we had a blast!
I believe I have made some friends for life. I also was able to spend
some time with each of the Yamazakis and also some of Mazak’s Senior
Management. |
| The travel was tough, but all in all it was a fantastic trip. I look forward to doing it again next year. As always, I look forward to your feedback! |
