In May 2005, at Print China in Beijing, we heard Mr. Yoshiharu Komori speak at a symposium about the need for Japanese manufacturers to

In May 2005, at Print China in Beijing, we heard Mr. Yoshiharu Komori speak at a symposium about the need for Japanese manufacturers to reorganise themselves in terms of efficiency, environment and digital technology. He was speaking of a Japan-industry wide program to accomplish these aims. Little did we know that the Komori plant in Tsukuba had already been in operation since 2002 and that on a weekend in 2005, the entire Toride operation had been moved there.

In April 2006, at IPEX in Birmingham, when Mr. Komori showed photographs of the futuristic new Komori plant in Tsukuba, it became apparent that the company was a leader in practicing the Japanese industry's manufacturing technology and modernisation program. Naturally we were keen to see the new plant.

Tsukuba is in Ibaraki prefecture an hour northwest of Tokyo by train from Ueno station. Although we know Ueno a bit from having stayed there a few years ago and having wandered through the park and the museums located there on a snowy Sunday, we reached Komori in Tsukuba by taking the train from another location in Ibaraki. For a professional tourist, the efficiency of the Japanese suburban train systems is itself a wonderful experience. These are not the Shinkansen fast trains. You have to get hold of a local train map that might only be in Japanese, plan your way and seek out an English-speaking passenger on the train if you are not sure of your stops. Someone always knows English and helps — it could be a grandmother travelling with her pet dog or a student returning from school.

Actually Tsukuba is well known for its Science City and for one of the leading science and technology universities in Japan. But the Komori factory is away from even this suburban setting — it is located on a plot of 185,000 square meters in a forested area, thus close to both the futuristic science city and to its commitment to the environment. The metaphor of the Komori factory in Tsukuba is apparent in its setting and its external architecture — “to see everything through our clients eyes; to inspire our clients.” The idea is to evoke Kando — “being moved beyond expectations.”

Komori started manufacturing presses in 1923 and made its first manual feed offset press in 1928. It moved manufacture to the Toride factory in 1967 and its web offset manufacture to Sekiyado in 1978. In 1989, the pioneering French mid-web gravure manufacturer Chambon joined the Komori Group and that operation has since been known as Komori-Chambon. From 2002 to 2005 the new 38,000 square meter factory in Tsukuba was built and limited operations began there in 2002 itself. In 2003 the plant received its ISO140001 and ISO 9001 certifications and in the following year, the Tsukuba plant became a zero emission plant with 100 per cent recycling of all waste.

In 2006 the Tsukuba plant which manufactures a wide range of sheetfed presses including the LS 26 and LS29, the LS40, and the LS40SP received the BG Emission Test Certificate in keeping with its environmental mission. The fabulous glass fronted building includes 178 solar panels that are integrated in its front elevation. There are solar panels and cylindrical windmills for outdoor lighting at night. All the oil used in manufacturing presses at Tsukuba is sent to an oil recycling plant.

The plan of the building is quite simple. It is divided into four areas that are next to each other and totally accessible to each other. There is the machining department and the assembly hall, which is divided from the development department by a see-through glass partition. The development department with its designers and engineers is open to customers, suppliers and employees. Since it is next to the assembly hall a problem at any station that cannot be solved by the assemblers themselves can be immediately attended to by the engineers who can watch the assembly line. Everyone can understand the problem category by a series of colour-coded flashing lights.

On the other side of the assembly hall is the testing, training and customer demonstration hall. This room is filled with presses built to the unique specification of each customer and up to 50 machines can be tested on the floor at a given time. A printing test is performed on every press that leaves Tsukuba.

The assembly itself takes place on a U-shaped line that holds the units and moves at an almost imperceptible 7 miles an hour. Komori claims that it is the world's most flexible assembly system for press manufacture and we have no reason to doubt this. The Just in Time parts arrive for the 100 per cent custom built units in special bins and trolleys. The entire assembly process uses tact-time control where each process has a tact time and a target number of units to be produced at one time. While we were there, Komori Tsukuba's production was nearing 14 units a day but the near-term target is probably 15 units, and the eventual target is likely to be something like 20 units a day.

Tsukuba takes both the Japanese machine tool industry and printing press manufacture to a new level of refinement. It is a very complex agglomeration of technologies and processes that have been organised and honed to manufacture one of the most sophisticated types of machinery known to modern society – the multicolour offset printing press. Everything is made to look simple but the manufacturing processes and skills have been defined by a design process that depends on highly skilled and experienced engineers.

The engineering skill chart put up on the partition that divides the assembly hall from the development department tracks each and every process skill that an engineer has achieved. It shows how the senior members of the team possess a vast array of skill certifications. The very detailed emphasis on education and training is tracked by updating the skill chart every three months. The keywords of the plant are enhancing quality and reliability and individual certification. Daily Kaizen improvement activity is helped by a Toyota representative who comes twice a week and the current three-year Kaizen project will be completed in 2008.

The Komori Tsukuba plant is a revelation. This is especially so when you have seen that the Japanese machine tool industry in general is very sophisticated in moving and assembling heavy sideframes, cylinders, and high technology components with great precision. The Tsukuba plant tries to keep things visual and simple, by its architecture, its division of the work areas, and its slow moving turntable assembly line. The metallurgy and the machining are not visible. Moreover the press design and technology are not really visible except in the end products that the presses produce and that only in the hands of demanding masters.

It is said that every structure is a demonstration of gravity. The Komori Tsukuba plant creates a light transparent structure that maintains flat and direct movement of materials, information and people. It's special environment is a tribute to nature and to man as thinker, writer, illustrator, maker, designer, builder, refiner, and as a fine tuner of his most complicated instruments.