OITA, JAPAN – Ms Eiko Higuchi took a job in an audio manufacturing facility using individuals with disabilities after an accident left her needing to make use of a wheelchair. Thirty-five years later, she has change into a grasp craftswoman, making microphones for recording business stars like Dr Dre.
Ms Higuchi works for a Sony Group subsidiary in a plant designed to offer individuals with disabilities a good probability within the office. It’s the ardour undertaking of co-founder Masaru Ibuka, who created the unit Sony Taiyo to disprove widespread prejudice about disabled individuals in Japan.
To accommodate staff with totally different bodily challenges, Sony developed a singular strategy to the manufacturing facility flooring. As an alternative of conveyor-belt techniques and one-size-fits-all work benches, it turned to what it calls mobile manufacturing. With most of the merchandise made at Taiyo, it entrusts the whole course of to a single one who handles manufacturing from uncooked components to packaging at a personalized work station with all instruments inside straightforward attain.
The shift has confirmed helpful for the completed product, as audio gear has numerous analog components that require fine-tuning and sensitivity that mass-manufacturing strategies lack.
Ms Higuchi specialises within the US$2,900 (S$3,900) C-38B microphone, first launched in 1965, and stated merely assembling its parts wouldn’t be sufficient to breed the unique, six-decade-old sound that broadcasters and musicians are listening out for.
“Each tiny part has slight deviations in texture, color and weight, and must be adjusted by hand. Robots can’t take over my job,” she famous.
Taiyo’s revenues tripled when it adopted the mobile methodology in 1999, in accordance with Sony. Beside the C-38B, the manufacturing facility additionally makes Sony’s C-800G, a US$11,000 microphone that’s now the gold normal for recording rap and pop vocals. Dr Dre, Justin Bieber, Drake and David Gilmour are amongst its customers documented on business tracker Equipboard.
“The C-800G has change into one of the vital vital components of a up to date vocal chain in pop, hip hop and R&B,” famous Mr Charlie Harding, host and producer of the Switched on Pop podcast. He and different producers stated they count on to see the microphone in any severe recording studio.
“C-800G is a world normal that creators and engineers belief because it captures each little detailed vocal expression, on every word and breath, permitting us to convey emotion in our music in precisely the best way we wish,” stated Mr Taku Takahashi, a member of Japanese hip-hop group M-Flo.
Ms Higuchi builds base models for the C-800G, that are assembled by colleague Taku Tanaka at a bench close by.
Each have been at Taiyo for over three many years, seeing the manufacturing facility evolve and creating a ardour for the job. Ms Higuchi stated she is delighted to see her merchandise in every part from TV commercials to music and YouTube movies and finds deep satisfaction in a job the place she is personally chargeable for the whole product quite than only a step in its meeting.
“Once I joined, it was two conveyor strains making hundreds of Walkmans per day,” 55-year-old Higuchi stated. “Going to the restroom wasn’t straightforward due to the conveyor system, however because the manufacturing facility adopted its cell system, we will now work at our personal tempo and take breaks at our discretion.”
