The COVID-19 crisis has led European and Japanese governments to take exceptional measures to avoid the pandemic. For that reason, and given the persisting sanitary risks, the EU-Japan Centre organised an interactive and real-time online version of our “Challenge Towards World Class Manufacturing” (WCM) training programme aiming to help improve EU manufacturers’ competitiveness.
For our latest WCM training held on 8 -12 March 2021; 25 companies from 11 Member States were selected to participate in the programme, among which 9 SMEs. The programme provided 4 lectures on Japanese manufacturing methods, 4 virtual plant visits and expert lectures of the selected Japanese firms, 1 workshop and 4 discussion sessions were also successfully organised. At the end of the programme, the participants divided into groups and presented how the learning of the course would help overcome the challenges that the participants currently face and stimulate their innovative capacities.
The latest two WCM missions were successfully organised virtually in this unprecedented time with Covid-19 pandemic. If the world health situation improves, the Centre will consider restarting physical WCM mission in Japan.

“What a great inspirational and insightful week!! I have had a lot of revelations once again. Not being able to be physically in Japan this time has not been a reason to not continue learning with the best of the best, do it so directly from the source and with fantastic European colleagues. Many thanks to the organising team of the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, to the whole team of lecturers and teammates. Now time to share and implement!” By Francisco Lamilla Curros, Head of Lean Manufacturing, SNOP FSD Group, Spain;

“I am extremely grateful to the EU-Japan Centre for the opportunity I was given to participate in this event. More than the tools learned, the greatest knowledge that I brought and that I will pass to my organisation is the care with People: the knowledge is in people; the improvement will come from people as a team. To get the most of what people have best - knowledge - to identify the real causes of problems and then look for solutions to eliminate them. To develop people so that they put their capacities on the activities that add value to the organisation. I congratulate the entire team that built this mission in an online format, since they managed to reproduce in virtual format what was designed to be on-site format event. Congratulations! Well done!”By Ricardo Freitas, Process Engineer, CENTIMFE - Centro Tecnológico da Indústria de Moldes, Ferramentas Especiais e Plásticos, Spain;

Published: June 2021