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.

　On January 11th at Hotel Lakeview Mito, Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi Building System, Co. held 2017 new year’s party, during which Ogura received the VEC award. VEC stands for Value Engineering for Customer. Ogura was recognized for engineering support through small brake development and cost down contribution.

　Ogura exhibited at Tokyo Auto Salon 2017 held from January 13th (Friday) to 15th (Sunday) at Makuhari Messe and showcased its new products: MAZDA new Road Star (ND5RC) clutch, TOYOTA Vitz (NCP13/CNP91/NCP131) metal clutch, BMW Mini (F56) light clutch, etc.
　Since last year, Ogura has also exhibited a motorcycle clutch (slipper clutch) and a KAWASAKI ZX6R with this clutch equipped in front of its booth. Additionally, Ogura held a talk show featuring Mr. Tetsuro Iwasaki, who is competing in the All Japan Road Race.
　Even though Auto Salon is an event for automobiles, many attendees stopped by at the talk show, indicating the popularity of motorcycle road races.
　Furthermore, in order to promote a new professional racing series for women, a former racer, Mr. Masanori Sekiya, invited a female driver to the talk show during which he showcased one of the vehicles for these races, the VITA-01.
　Other professional drivers who are competing in Inter Proto Series attended the talk show as guests, and the booth filled with fans, the most ever.
　At a newly established rally section, the video footage of last year’s TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge was played. Next to it, was Ogura racing clutches that are being used in vehicles that are currently competing in rallies. Ogura promoted the fact that Ogura racing clutches are being used in various top class races such as SUPER GT, 86/BRZ One Make Race and All Japan Road Race Competition, etc.

Ogura subsidiary in China, Ogura Clutch Changxing (OCC) passed a series of qualification processes by CASC (certification body in China: China Jiuding Automotive Supplier Certification Co. Ltd.) and acquired ISO/TS 16949 certification.
　OCC had already acquired ISO9001 in 2014, and additional ISO/TS 16949 certification shall lead to enhancement of overall management level by applying continuous improvement for process effectiveness to management of delivery and cost.
　Also in order to meet the increasing Chinese domestic demand, a new plant being built next to the existing plant is scheduled to begin operation at the end of 2017.
　ISO/TS 16949 principles and management system will be applied to this new plant in order to timely deliver high quality products to customers. Ogura believes that it will strengthen its relationship with its customers.

Since Ogura began automotive air conditioning clutch production in 1963, the cumulative total quantity it produced has reached 100 million in 1995, 200 million in 2002 and 300 million in 2008, and this year, it has reached 400 million clutches.
　In the last 50 years, Ogura has expanded its production along with the trend of motorization through various economic events, such as Japan’s high growth period, oil shock, collapse of bubble economy, bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and so on. Without support from global customer base, Ogura could not have achieved this milestone, and with automotive air conditioning clutch as its flagship product, Ogura is committed to keep producing high quality products for the customers in various industries all over the world.

　At the end of last quarter, Ogura held its 2016 Quality Circle World Competition. In order to qualify, quality circles from all worldwide Ogura manufacturing locations must have come up with an improvement to an existing process that reduces cost, time or waste.This year, four teams from outside of Japan (Ogura Corporation (USA), Ogura Clutch Dongguan (China), Ogura Clutch Thailand, Ogura Clutch Changxing (China) qualified for the competition as well as two teams from Japan.
　All teams presented their ideas, implementation steps and final results to a board of manufacturing and senior executives from Ogura.Many Ogura employees from the manufacturing plants in Japan (approximately 350) were also present to view the competition and possibly gain ideas for their own departments.It was a great opportunity for quality control and manufacturing personnel to exchange ideas and share stories.