Metal One Corporation - Value One - Metal Culture

From Value One, Autumn 2007 No. 18

Higashi-Osaka City in Osaka Prefecture is known for its small and medium-sized enterprises. The number of factories and other business establishments per square kilometer of inhabitable land here is 135, which makes this city the most factory-concentrated municipality in Japan. Many indigenous industries are still active here, accounting for approximately 20% of the national output of screws, bolts, nuts, rivets, and so forth (collectively called byora in Japanese).

The byora industry in Higashi-Osaka is characterized by the high technical standards and creativity of the individual enterprises that make up the sector. One typical example of such enterprises is Takenaka Seisakusho Co., Ltd., the only manufacturer in Japan that makes large bolts for use in nuclear power plants. Succeeding in the latter half of the 1950s with the first production of large bolts made of specialty steel in Japan, Takenaka quickly rose to join the leading specialty steel bolt manufacturers in the world. The company then turned its attention to developing large bolts to be used in nuclear power plants. These specialty steel bolts, the first Japanese-made bolts of its kind, were subsequently accepted by The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. for its Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in the early 1970s. Since then, all large bolts used in the principal parts of nuclear power plants in this country have been supplied by Takenaka Seisakusho.

Some of the other byora companies in Higashi-Osaka, however, chose to utilize their creativity to meet new challenges. Kawabata Neji Seisakusho Co., Ltd. has been turning out custom-made specialty precision screws since its inauguration in 1953, and its products have continued to find their way into the products of leading industrial sewing machine manufacturers across the world. A new product category that Kawabata Neji Seisakusho recently began supplying is what is called art neji (screw), or decorated screws. Art neji are attractive to look at; they are colored beautifully or made to look antique. Such advanced technical resources and innovative ideas support the indigenous industries of Higashi-Osaka.

Large bolts for use in nuclear power plants require strict control to ensure the accuracy of their dimensions.

Precision screw manufacturing equipment can produce screws as small as roughly 1 mm in diameter.

Art neji made from nuts and screws to look like confectionery

SOHLA-1, which is already completed, is a small satellite weighing only about 50 kg.

In Higashi-Osaka, the technical resources of companies in the area are utilized to develop small satellites, and Astro Technology SOHLA is leading this initiative. The association has already assembled a small satellite called SOHLA-1, which is expected to be launched in the summer of 2008. Capitalizing on this and other successes in research, Astro Technology SOHLA is planning to develop a small general-purpose satellite dubbed PETSAT.