Ichikoh Industries, part of the Valeo Group, have opened the Ichikoh Tooling Centre, a mould factory that serves as the core base for moulding technology, on the premises of their Isehara Manufacturing Plant in Kanagawa Prefecture. This plant will produce very difficult moulds, and will be responsible for prototyping, analysis, and estimating, handing over moulds to each manufacturing base, and supporting mass production.
Ichikoh are leaders in moulding subfields including microfabrication, laser texturing, and metal moulding. To meet ever-increasing quality demands, the company are actively developing new manufacturing methods. To improve production efficiency, they’ve adopted an efficient layout conscious of preventing a single product from stagnating or going back between processes.
The old factory’s problems were solved by optimizing the layout of the equipment and installing a precision machining room to deal with vibrations that affect fine processing. The company also aim to more than double the current number of moulds they produce. Moulds are important parts that determine the quality and performance of a product, so perfection is required; therefore training the next generation of engineers is an urgent task.
The company’s mission is to develop workers to inherit the skills of existing ‘master craftsmen’. Training mouldmasters takes many years, and securing the necessary personnel is an issue, so Ichikoh are promoting data conversion, mechanization, digitalization, and automation of operations while creating an environment that supports the improvement of mouldmaster skills.
