Overseas Inspection Tour (Poland and Romania)

~Steady Kaizen activities and Regional Cooperation activities

I visited the Polish and Romanian bases in July.

At the Romanian base, the production division has been steadily making improvements on a daily basis even under major fluctuations in orders and production volume due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the tight supply-demand for semiconductors.
I felt that the recent occurrence of such a critical situation has led to closer communication between on-site employees and local executives.
There are still many areas that require improvement, but I expect that if they continue their kaizen activities more vigorously, the results of these efforts will blossom during this fiscal year, when production is scheduled to enter an expansion phase.
I have asked them to work toward achieving the goals of 2029V and 2025P by raising the profitability of the group as a whole and creating a robust structure that can withstand future fluctuations in production volume.

In Poland, after visiting the SRK-P Wolbrom plant, we visited the Wolbrom Judo Club, a local judo club team, which we heard that the late Mr. Miyata, then president of Sumitomo Riko, had started supporting when the company was founded.
The club team includes Ms. Kaleta Alexandra (12th place in the World Ranking*: 1st place in the Polish National Ranking), who is likely to participate in the Paris Olympics to be held in 2024.　*International Judo Federation (IFJ) Women's 52kg as of 8/3

(Left) Ms. Kaleta Alexandra　

SRK-P executives have served as the Executive Director of the Wolbrom Judo Club for generations, and many employees and their families have been involved.The social contribution activities that have been integrated into the local community over the years have contributed to increasing SRK-P's presence and credibility and have become a source of pride for SRK-P employees.
I was also reminded once again that such activities contribute greatly to the future development of our group companies.

Let us continue to strive to be a company that is trusted and reliable by local communities around the world with high corporate ethics and a spirit of legal compliance, based on the Sumitomo Spirit of “Banji-nissei”, "Shinyo-kakujitsu”, and Fusu-furi”.