Provide Products Specialized for Clean Environment
Semiconductors, liquid crystals, and electronic components that support IT technology, as well as various products indispensable for electrification of next-generation automobiles - the performance of these products can be affected by even the slightest dust particle. Therefore, they are produced in a clean environment at manufacturing plants. The Clean Technology Team (referred to below as the CT Team) is engaged in the sales of nitrile gloves, wiping cloths, masks, and antistatic items, all of which require a clean environment. The manufacturing plants of electronics companies that use those products are located not only in Japan but also in China, Taiwan, Korea, and in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and the Philippines. The CT Team, making use of its overseas base network, is on a mission to supply products with a high clean performance in a timely manner, especially to Japanese companies.

Develop Harada Corporation’s Own Nitrile Glove 
This started with an incident in Singapore in 2007. A certain Japanese company, which was operating in Southeast Asia, was using Harada Corporation’s nitrile gloves. Its plants in Japan were using the ones that we procured domestically; its overseas plants were using other nitrile gloves that our overseas base was dealing with. That company pointed out to us that the price and quality of the gloves were different in spite of being the same Harada Corporation gloves. 

Of course, it is common that the same nitrile gloves may have different prices and qualities when manufacturers are different. However, we wanted to clear up confusion with our business partners by unifying all the nitrile gloves we were handling, rather than by explaining the situation and having their understanding. It would be meaningless if we just integrated our manufacturers. We should produce Harada Corporation’s own nitrile gloves. Those gloves needed to be such a high-quality, private product, and not just simply produced with our logo, that they could only be produced by Harada Corporation, and our customers would be pleased with them.

Moreover, there was another issue that all our competitors were dealing with nitrile gloves because there was a high need for them in Southeast Asia. We would be able to compete with those competitors not on price but on quality by developing a product can stand out from others. This idea led to the linking strategy that we would supply the same products at the same value in a timely manner to each plant of Japanese companies operating their business globally. 



Provide Perfect Products After 100% Inspection
We focused on the high level of quality. Of course, easy handling and tear resistance were important. Important also is that the product itself should be clean. Thus, we believed that we could achieve the high-quality that we aimed for if we thoroughly wash high-quality nitrile gloves with clean water. 

To begin with, we looked for nitrile gloves, on which this project was based. After narrowing down the list of numerous manufacturers to four or five, we finally signed a contract with a Chinese manufacturer. Then, we began looking for a cleaning factory. In selecting the factory, we compared not only the scale of business but data such as fraction defectives. Furthermore, we set a monthly production goal of six million gloves. This number was equivalent to one line at the factory. This was to occupy one line exclusively for our product and not allowing the factory to do the job for other companies. In addition, we asked for a 100% inspection rate, even though sampling inspections were typically conducted for gloves. To secure quality, we decided that Japanese quality control personnel should check the final products at the manufacturing facilities.

To Minimize Defective Products
We had the hardest time with measures for defective products. We contracted a glove mold factory with relatively low fraction defectives. Nonetheless, 2% of the gloves manufactured were defective. That was merely 2%. However, it would be 120,000 defective products if we produce six million gloves. The problem was that they would be content with a 2% defective rate. The glove mold factory insisted that they could not guarantee 100% quality. We continued negotiations with them, saying “If you insist on it, we will bear the costs of defective products. However, for example, when you have 30 defectives out of 1,500 gloves, we would like you to strive to reduce the number down to 20, and then to 10.”   

As a matter of fact, we would not see any improvement as long as we just asked them verbally to make such effort. We showed them the data on monthly defective products, and we formed a product support team responsible for quality and dispatched the team to the factory. In addition, we explained the product concept to staff and gave a thorough lecture on the significance of working, the mindset for work, and specific techniques to eliminate defective products. We believed that we could not achieve the high quality we were striving for unless we should improve it to the level where we would have a defective rate of less than 1%. Furthermore, we promoted communication, like having meals with the staff at the factory by which we enhanced their awareness that we were one team. 

In 2008, under the slogan “Solution Supplier through Global Network,” Harada Corporation launched its own brand, H-Tech Nitrile Glove. At that time, one year had already passed since we set out the project. 

The H-Tech Nitrile Glove was well received. Staff working at manufacturing plants in the electronics industry would put on nitrile gloves in a pre-cleanroom and check for pinholes on the surface of them. This was a time-consuming and nerve-wracking process. The benefits were great because such checks were not needed anymore. Companies had introduced our gloves all at once. The high quality that we were striving for was recognized.



Building Harada Corporation’s Clean Washing Factory to Improve Quality
In 2013, Harada Corporation invested in and began building a clean washing factory with its own equipment in Malaysia. Again, we sent our product support team to this factory for its launch and had them stationed there for a year to ensure stable operation at the factory. Considering risk avoidance, we partnered with cleaning factories in China and the Philippines in addition to Malaysia. We also dispersed glove mold factories into Malaysia and China, enabling us to ship products from the optimal factory according to the delivery location. This contributed to not only quick delivery but also the reduction of transportation costs. Moreover, when a fire broke out at the factory, it hardly affected the supply of products because of risk avoidance. 

Why should Harada Corporation build a clean washing factory with its own equipment? The advantage for many companies to locate their factories in Southeast Asia is to keep down labor costs, which will lower overall costs. There are many cases where the equipment in factories is not sufficiently modernized to curb costs. Many of the staff working in those countries think that they can get an assignment if they lower the costs. However, they have to get out of such a mindset, otherwise the factory will remain unmodernized, and they will have to remain as a subcontractor. Their quality will not improve either. To reach the high level of quality demanded by Japan is to be at a global level. When the quality level improves, the factory will be able to be engaged in a wider range of businesses; consequently, the lives of local staff will improve, too. We built the clean washing factory, not because we wanted to curb costs but because we wanted to build a clean washing factory where we can do business with the world.  

Aiming to switch the mindset of the staff working at the local factories, we not only let Harada Corporation’s employees visit those but occasionally asked contact personnel in customer companies to go and visit them. Our intention was to have the local staff listen to customers’ remarks and requests directly so that they could feel the issues of the factory in reality. In the early days after the factory was founded, we failed to receive an order after we showed one of our customers around because he decided, “We can’t entrust our business to a factory like this.” However, this made the factory staff develop a sense of danger even more. This effort was significant because it helped create awareness in not only the staff at factory but Harada Corporation’s employees that this was our own product.

There are no other companies that have equal to our 100% quality-guaranteed nitrile gloves. It is the product that takes a lot of work but can be sold with confidence. Recently, H-Tech Nitrile Gloves have become widely known in Asia, and counterfeit products have appeared. We, of course, take legal action against unauthorized products, but on the other hand, we may say that the quality of our product has been recognized this much.

H-Tech is the brand name of a series, with H standing for Harada Corporation and Tech for technology. We are developing not only gloves but also wipers as a brand that integrates Harada Corporation’s technologies. Our dream to make H-Tech a brand that supports the future of the electronics industry has already begun.