Day 13 in Japan (1)

After the second free day in Tokyo, the first company we visited is Kawasaki Rikuso Transportation Company. This company has 93 years of history and its office is widespread in Japan. KPT offer all-in-one logistics service ranging from customs clearance, inland transportation, bonded storage, warehousing, pick—pack and delivery, as well as value added service such as inspection, re-packaging, labeling, etc. 

There are some points I think is worth to share on today’s blog.

The first is the way they use the space. In Tokyo, every piece of space is very scarce. So, to increase the efficiency of using the land to storage as many goods as they could, they use their space as three-dimension way. They use many stores shelfs so that cargos can be put on the difference space levels for the warehouse. By doing this way, it is more convenience for KRT to manage the cargo and space.

Second, in KRT many work is done by human. Many companies we visited have a similar point that a company could contain high and low technology at the same time within the manufactory process. For example, like packing and checking every single package is finished manually. It might because of the Japanese culture that they thought for some specific part of manufactory, man-made can be more concise than the machine-made. And many works which need be more patient is done by the woman. In the packing room, I only saw female employees who is checking the package like gas and stick the label.

   

Third is how picky the Japanese customer could be. Both Mr. Higuchi and professor Singer mentions that Japanese consumer always want the best. They are perfectionist. If the label is not stuck straightly or the expression day is not being noted clearly, consumer would not buy it. I think this could be a reason for many Japanese companies very care about the quality for the product.