Thirty-three years with one machine-tool maker, seven of them in Illinois

Mandate

Combine research, development and digital engineering into one technology organisation with a single roadmap, build export control into product design, and renew the company's craft and software skills.

Outcomes

• Raised the share of R&D spent on modules shared by more than one machine family from 31% to 52%, while projects stopped at gate reviews rose from two to nine a year.
• Gave the export trade control office a vote at the design freeze; developed a hardware-distinct five-axis variant and fitted relocation detection to every controlled machine shipped abroad.
• Moved 38% of scraping hours on large beds to robots and raised apprentice intake from two to seven a year.
• Introduced joint mechanical and software sign-off on every product release and a technical career ladder reaching executive grade.

Decisions in context

When our president combined research, product development and digital engineering into one Technology Headquarters in April 2022, he asked me to give the company one technology roadmap instead of three. I organised our R&D into three horizons with four gates, published the share of spending on shared platforms and made stopping a project at a gate an ordinary outcome rather than an embarrassment. Two subjects took more of my time than I had expected. The first was export control: after the argument over a software-limited five-axis variant, I brought our export trade control office into concept reviews and gave it a vote at the design freeze. The second was skills, where I worked with our manufacturing division and human resources to measure the scraping craft, enlarge apprentice intake and create a career ladder for engineers who do not wish to manage. I present to the board each year and am not a director.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; leading the next horizontal machining-centre platform, due in 2028.

Mandate

Shorten development lead times, settle the future of the in-house controller programme and launch a five-axis machining centre for aerospace and medical parts.

Outcomes

• Recommended ending the in-house CNC controller after ¥3.4bn of spending; 47 of its 52 engineers were redeployed inside the company.
• Released operator software for third-party controllers in October 2021; it now ships on 78% of new machining centres.
• Cut development lead time for a new machine family from 34 months to 27.
• Kept development running through the 2020 fall in orders and launched the five-axis machining centre in 2021.

Decisions in context

I became an executive officer and took over product development in April 2019, answerable for every new machine from concept to release. My first large decision was to recommend ending the in-house CNC controller programme, which had absorbed 52 engineers and ¥3.4 billion. The rest of my tenure went into rebuilding development around what we kept: operator software running on the controllers our customers already used, modules shared across machine families and a stricter gate process. The pandemic arrived in my second year. Orders fell sharply in 2020, and I kept development moving with remote design reviews and staggered shifts in the test cells, which let us launch a five-axis machining centre for aerospace and medical parts in 2021 as orders recovered. I moved into the CTO role when the company merged its technology functions under one headquarters.

Reason for the move

Appointed managing executive officer and CTO when research, development and digital engineering were combined.

Mandate

Build a remote service capability for new machines and make it acceptable to customers' production and IT teams.

Outcomes

• Raised the connection rate of new machines from 11% in the first year to 57% by 2018.
• Listed every transmitted value on each machine's own screen, with owner switches by category.
• Raised first-visit fix rates from 61% to 84% and cut average downtime per service call from 3.9 to 1.6 days by 2019.
• Introduced an on-premises gateway in 2018 for customers who could not permit outside connection.

Decisions in context

Our president asked me in 2014 to build a remote service capability, because large customers wanted us to see alarms before they called us. I asked for the unit to sit within engineering, so that what we learnt from machines in the field would reach the designers rather than stop at the service desk. We started with nine people and a pilot on new machining centres in April 2015. The first year showed that the barrier was trust rather than technology: only 11% of customers connected. In 2016 we listed every value each machine sends on its own screen, let owners switch categories off and kept part programmes in the plant, and uptake rose steadily. I built the team to 96 people, including service engineers retrained in remote diagnosis, and launched paid contracts in 2019 after three free years per machine. I was then appointed an executive officer to lead product development.

Reason for the move

Appointed executive officer and head of product development.

Mandate

Renew the horizontal machining-centre range using what overseas customers had taught us, then lead all machining-centre development.

Outcomes

• Launched a new horizontal machining-centre generation in 2010 after keeping the project alive, on two-thirds of its budget, through the 2009 collapse in orders.
• Introduced a thermal-compensation package that cut customers' warm-up time before precision work from about forty minutes to twelve.
• Launched a second generation of five-axis machines in 2013.
• Raised the share of horizontal machining-centre revenue earned outside Japan from 48% to 63%.

Decisions in context

I came back from Illinois to lead development of our horizontal machining centres, then the company's largest product family. My first project was a new generation built around a spindle redesigned from field reports I had sent from the United States. The financial crisis struck eighteen months later. Domestic orders fell to roughly a quarter of the previous year's level in early 2009, and the company shortened working hours and drew on the government's employment adjustment subsidy. I argued for keeping the next-generation project alive with a smaller team; we lost a third of its budget but not the project, and it launched in 2010 as orders returned. From April 2010 I ran the whole machining-centre development department, adding a thermal-compensation package that shortened customers' warm-up time and a second generation of five-axis machines in 2013.

Reason for the move

Asked by the president to found a remote service engineering department.

Mandate

Support the North American launch of horizontal machining centres and build an applications team able to prove and commission machines without engineers flown in from Japan.

Outcomes

• Set up a field report system to the Nagaoka design department, reaching about two hundred reports a year.
• Commissioned an eleven-machine titanium bulkhead line for Brackenfield Aerostructures.
• Built a library of qualified cutting trials for aerospace alloys, valve bodies and automotive parts.
• Cut the average time from delivery to customer acceptance from 19 days to 8.

Decisions in context

The company sent me to Illinois in 1999 to support the American launch of our horizontal machining centres. Most of my work happened in customers' factories: proving cycle times before an order, commissioning machines and solving problems after acceptance. American customers judged us on the first months after installation, and they told us plainly when we fell short. I started a written field report, sent directly to the design department in Nagaoka, and by my last year we were filing about two hundred a year. One report, on spindle bearing temperatures during long titanium roughing cycles at Brackenfield Aerostructures, led to a redesigned spindle in the next generation. From 2002 I managed applications and service engineering, growing the team from six to fourteen and building a library of qualified cutting trials. I was recalled to Japan in 2006 to lead machining-centre development.

Reason for the move

Recalled to Japan as chief engineer for horizontal machining centres.

Mandate

Complete the new engineers' assembly rotation, then design wheel heads and thermal systems for cylindrical grinding machines.

Outcomes

• Developed, with my section chief, a compensation method that cut diameter drift over a shift from about six microns to under two.
• Named on four patents for thermal compensation and wheel-head cooling.
• Completed a doctorate by thesis on thermal drift in 1998 while working full time.

Decisions in context

I joined Isaragi in April 1993 and, like every new engineer, spent six months in assembly before my design posting, including four weeks scraping slideways under a master technician. I then joined the section that designed cylindrical grinding machines at Joetsu. Our customers were mostly automotive engine and transmission plants grinding shafts and journals to tolerances of a few microns. My first real assignment was a machine that drifted through the afternoon, and with my section chief I spent three weeks measuring temperature and diameter on a customer's line. The compensation method we built from that work became standard on our grinding machines and the basis of my doctorate by thesis in 1998. I was named on four patents. In 1999 I asked for an overseas posting, wanting to see our machines from the customer's side, and was sent to Illinois.

Reason for the move

Asked for an overseas posting and was sent to Isaragi America to support the North American launch of horizontal machining centres.