Results of Monozukuri Work Philosophy The Monozukuri forum at sauza

por Servando Calderon Servando Calderon | Dec 21, 2021 12:03:31 PM

Monozukuri Foro Forum

Monozukuri to us is a philosophy, a way of working. It is based in two pillars, the mission and its principles. It is a business vision that involves every aspect: the environment, people, the company, and how they all harmonize together.

It is a way of living; how we take care of nature, how we take care of our people, how we take care of the environment. It is a way of adopting all these principles of the organization.

 (Wikipedia information)"

NOTE: "Monozukuri is a practice, in the production context, that seeks to optimize all the processes of the value chain of a product. The term is a japanese word that literally means "process of manufacturing something" formed by  thing (物, monkey) and  process of manufacturing (作 り, tsukuri, or -zukuri). (Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Monozukuri Principles in the company

It is based in 4 principles:

1 Processes.

The processes that go from our natural product to its final delivery

2 Technological innovation.

The innovation at the improvement of processes.

3 Development of our people

To develop and train our people.

4 Human happiness

That people feel happy at their job and can truly consider their workplace a second home. Now, What do we mean by human happiness?

Obviously, happiness to know that our customers are satisfied with our products, but also our co-workers. We can’t keep our costumers 100% happy if our co-workers are not happy themselves or don’t feel that passion in their everyday tasks. The same with our suppliers, with our community… so what we are really talking about, is about growing together and growing for good.

In the end, what we want is for each one is to have ownership, ownership of their own processes. By developing this ownership, everyone is in charge of their own process, their own tools; each person is in charge of their own development. I insist, the development of our people is fundamental to us.

What is Monozukuri Forum?

It is a forum where Japanese exhibitors come, where corporate people from our headquarters also come, to validate the best projects. It is a forum where all the colleagues exhibit, demonstrate their skills, and present their projects. And everyone is trying to be recognized as the best project and to earn a very good position, a very good recognition from the organization.

The Monozukuri forum is an annual event that we have here, at Casa Sauza, at which we share our best practices. It is also an opportunity to give account of everything that we have been working on throughout the year in order to improve our processes. And it is by means of this forum that we show our talent, by presenting these cases/projects of improvement

Improvement cases at Monozukuri Forum 

The projects go from the agave area, to the packaging area, the distillery area… in each of them we find innovations, methodology. At the field, we see very innovative projects, such as the one where we can count our agaves by making use of a drone.

For example, we have changed our boilers to gas and with such efficiency that we are emitting 40% less carbon.

In the distillery area, it’s about the automation at loading of agave pineapples in the production processes.

In the packaging area, about how we have developed some methodologies to improve our packaging productivity by increasing speed, by making format changes to make the lines more efficient, with greater flexibility.

How are the cases evaluated at the Monozukuri Forum?

The evaluation process of the forum is very simple; the innovation part is evaluated, the standardization part is evaluated… we also consider how much of that improvement can be replicated in other processes. We evaluate costs, savings and even the level of analysis of each project is taken into account.

Who evaluates the improvement cases?

This year, instead of inviting people from other companies, we decided to extend the invitation to other industrial plants and people within the organization of Beam Suntury that we thought could benefit from sharing this forum.

Monozukuri Forum Prize

Well the prize consists of a trip to the beach, for two people, the winners and their companion, for three nights and four days, so they fully enjoy our beautiful beaches here in Mexico.

Why Monozukuri Philosophy?

The mission is to create value and create high quality, safe, and reliable products. Each of these principles is shown in every process, from farming to the delivery of our final product, and it all has to do with purity.

The agave takes from 5 to 6 years to grow, and we want our tequila to show those agave notes that take all that time to be formed. By doing so, our costumers get to enjoy and know the tequila from its origins.

What are we doing in order to mantain this purity and how do we extract it?

To us, this is a fundamental process. We avoid the press in order to avoid extracting components such as waxes, oils, methanol, cellulose, which are components that do not favor the product. Rather, we extract all those components that favor those notes of herbs, fruits, spices, that you can really taste and enjoy.

It is also important for us to reflect that purity in the environment, by not polluting the water, or even by avoiding the unnecessary consumption of water. We consume as little as possible. The same with energy, our fuel consumption is low. In all, we reflect that purity in our environment, both in air as in water.

We have to keep developing ourselves, we have to keep growing. Our clients, and the way we ourselves consume, is changing. We also have  to change the way we are producing, to get rid of all those activities that do not add value to our people, such as loading ovens or adding labels by hand. Such activities are not really valuable handicrafts, they are manual activities that, to our people, add no value at all, they don’t reflect any personal development.

Monozukuri Philosophy results

Today we are the third company in the ranking of “the best companies to work at” in the western area of Mexico Casa Sauza- great place to work

In the Suntory’s parameters, our TPM activity is excellent, of the highest level.  Within the Suntory team, there are only three products at this level in Japan.

We have been taught that we are more than just a machine that loads an oven, that pastes labels. The most important thing that we have, and that we should not waste because it is our soul, is that intellectual part, that emotional part, which are also connected.

How do they connect? In my case I see growth, development of what we call “hard” competences, such as learning a new language, learning... why not?  artificial intelligence.

It is also knowing how to switch from that  leadership style where you order what to do, to a style based on coaching, in which  people really develop themselves and leave a mark, in their everyday work. And that's how we encourage that innovation, that passion to create value.

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