This year, I have been entrusted to serve as chairman of JAMA, taking up the baton from former Chairman Katayama.
From the outset, we have been confronted with a rapidly changing global situation. In times like these, we must ensure that we fulfill our role as one of Japan’s core industries.
To that end, as JAMA’s new leadership team, we will seek to build upon the foundations of industry collaboration forged under former Chairman Katayama, while also accelerating the pace of implementation. We will dedicate our energies to taking action and look forward to your continued support.
(…)
At the end of last year, JAMA set out seven new priority challenges for the automotive industry. The key theme is “international competitiveness.”
To survive in the current challenging environment and to continue growing as a mobility industry, I believe our entire sector must work together to improve international competitiveness.
Strengthening human resources and their foundational role.
Enhancing competitiveness across the entire supply chain.
Accelerating the implementation of a multipathway approach.
Focusing on these key topics, we will delve deeper, clarifying specific areas of collaboration and continuing to put ideas into practice.
Another important element in boosting international competitiveness is to leverage the auto industry’s strengths through the application of AI. In the field of information processing, particularly AI, there is a concept known as “garbage in, garbage out.”
Garbage, meaning low-quality information, will never yield good results. In other words, only high-quality data leads to good output.
Our frontline operations are underpinned by our people, and the skills and techniques they have cultivated over many years, in everything from production to logistics, sales, and maintenance.
Having personally been engaged in monozukuri for much of my career, I believe this aspect is the source of our competitiveness, and one that must never be lost. Now is the time for all of us to work together to develop these capabilities further.
By translating these strengths, our genba skills, into data and adopting a monozukuri approach that combines them with AI and robotics, we can gain a new competitive advantage that will pave the way for Japan’s success.
I hope we can harness the collective expertise of our five organizations in pursuing these initiatives.