Promoting Environmentally-Conscious Monozukuri Craftsmanship (Hitachi Construction Machinery Tierra Co., Ltd.)

Hitachi Construction Machinery Tierra Co., Ltd. relocated its Osaka Production Center to Daito, Osaka Prefecture and has been operating out of there since March 2013. The former Osaka Production Center was situated in front of the Keihan Owada Station and surrounded by condominium complexes. Operations had to be carried out with the utmost care and attention to the surrounding residential environment and risk of fire and other disasters as a portion of the factory building was a pre-World War II wooden structure.

The relocated production center is positioned in an inner-city industrial park 1.5km east of the Namihaya Dome, a sports arena in Osaka. The new production center is more eco-friendly than the former factor, boasting top-runner features such as a high-efficiency transformer, the introduction of energy-efficient electrical machinery, improved packaging, and the termination of the painting process. In addition, the production center is well organized thanks to the high level of awareness among employees who are thoroughly implementing the 5S methodology.

The outcome of business activities in the most recent 12 months has been a 30% reduction in electrical power usage, an approximate 70% cut in industrial waste emission, and zero VOC emissions. The production center received the Hitachi Group’s Eco-factory Select certification in FY2014 owing to the high evaluations it received for the results obtained from these environmental activities. This is the first factory in the Hitachi Construction Machinery Group to receive this certification which is indicative of a high level of environmentally-conscious Monozukuri craftsmanship even among other factories within the HCM Group.