Ogura Corporation (OC) recently received the Supplier Recognition Award from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Climate Control, Inc.(MCCA). MCCA visited OC and presented the award plaque. The award was given because of Ogura’s consistent high marks regarding quality, delivery and cost.

　Last quarter, at the Mechanical Element Technology Exposition, held at the Tokyo Big Sight, a wide variety of Ogura clutch and brake products were presented to visitors.These included oil mist separators and roots blower (supercharger).

　The theme for the show was motion control innovation. To help represent this, Ogura created a robotic arm that utilized holding brakes, hysteresis brakes, and new grip sensors. The arm picked up and placed objects with exact precision and repeatability.

　　

　On April 7th, the government officials from Shijie administrative district of Dongguan city in Guangdong prefecture visited Ogura Clutch headquarters in Japan to award Ogura an official appreciation letter and commemorative item.
　Ogura established Ogura Clutch Dongguan (OCD) in the district of Shijie, which is located in the north east of the city of Dongguan in May 2003. Starting from an automotive air conditioning clutch, OCD has been expanding its production line-up, such as riding lawn mower clutch, power train solenoid and office automation micro clutch.
　As a result, OCD was among the top 10 tax payers in Shijie in 2016 and was awarded a commemorative plaque in January 2017. The appreciation letter is the result of recognition by the Dongguan government for Ogura’s sustained contribution to the Dongguan economy for many years.
　The officials requested Ogura to continue its contribution to their economy. The economy in Shijie district of Dongguan has grown 8% consecutively for the last four years. OCD is Ogura’s first plant in China of the current three plants, which employs 650 people and is expected to grow further.

　In March, at the Panasonic Supplier Seminar, the winners of four awards were announced. The awards given to suppliers were the Superior Quality Award, Superior Quality Improvement Award, Superior Streamlining Award and the Superior Response Award. This year, Ogura Clutch Wuxi (OCW) received the Superior Response Award. (Last year, OCW received the Superior Quality Award.) This award is Panasonic’s recognition of Ogura’s prompt response for delivery, cost reduction by localization and prompt and effective communication. The communication skills of OCW were highly praised by Panasonic personnel. 
　After the award ceremony, the award was brought back to the plant and given to the employees confirming that it is their hard work and commitment to quality that allows Ogura to be successful.

　Last quarter, at the 2017 Sanden Holdings Global Supplier Conference, Ogura received awards for QCD (quality, cost, design) and C&I (challenge and innovation).
　From Sanden’s 1,600 suppliers, the QCD and C&I awards are given only to the top suppliers that exhibit superior overall cost quality and performance that contribute to Sanden’s overall success. There were a total of 84 suppliers invited to the event.
　61 were from Japan and 23 suppliers from outside of Japan. From the suppliers that were invited, only 14 received the QCD and C&I awards.
　Ogura’s global QCD activities were recognized and highly praised by Sanden.President and CEO, Mr. Kanda, personally handed the plaque to Ogura.

　On January 23rd, Ogura Clutch Dongguan (OCD) was recognized as one of the top 10 tax payers in the district of Shijie for the year of 2016 and awarded a commemorative plaque by the local government. Shijie is an administrative district within the city of Dongguan in Guangdong prefecture with population of approximately 200 thousand. (Dongguan’s population is approximately 7.5 million.) There are about seven thousand registered companies in Shijie, but including unregistered businesses such as small sole-proprietorship businesses, the actual number may be twice as many.Tax in China is not a simple matter. Besides corporate tax, there are value added tax, sales tax, stamp duty, vehicle tax, city development tax, education tax, embankment tax, import tax and so on. The total amount of these taxes that OCD paid, ranked in the top 10 in Shijie.
　OCD’s business went very well last year due in part to favorable exchange rate and lower material cost, which doubled the amount of tax it owed. OCD is going to explore more localization and efficiency improvements to continue this good trend.

　Ground-breaking ceremony for new plant of Ogura Clutch Changxing was held at the lot right next to the current plant. By this addition, the total floor square footage will be expanded from 6,640㎡ (71,472ft²) to 10,728㎡(115,475ft²).
　Production capability for automotive air conditioning clutch will be expanded from the current 300K clutches per year to 2 million clutches per year (7 times). The plan is to expand employment to 300 employees (twice as much as the current employment number). Also the plan calls for increase of production for industrial clutches for elevators and industrial robots in order to meet the increase of Chinese domestic demands.