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Posts Tagged ‘Japan’

The metal pressing technology in Japan is something that many other countries have adopted as their standard. It’s important to maintain 100% accuracy with metal pressing because once even one tiny part fails, the whole product collapses. Imagine if that product is a surgical tool used to operate on major organs and it fails while in the operating room? It would be catastrophic.

For this reason, many manufacturers of auto parts and medical devices which are intensely regulated turn to Japanese technology. There are more than 1.5 million medical tools today and every month, new tools are being introduced. This is a figure provided by the International Organization for Standardization or ISO. It is the group that certifies products and services as being accepted based on international standards. It’s why you often see companies proudly bearing their ISO certification as proof of quality. Not known to many, the standards used to critique consumer tools and specialized parts and equipment were partly borrowed from the standards of the top Japanese manufacturing companies including the metal press and stamping firms.
In the metal press technology of Japan, there is a set system known as DQ/IQ/OQ and PQ for medical devices. In a nutshell it identifies, tests the design (DQ or Design Qualification), installation (IQ or Installation Qualification), operation (OQ or Operational Qualification), and performance (PQ or Performance Qualification). If a medical device fails on one of these tests, it does not get certified which means medical companies, doctors, hospitals, and clinics will not buy the medical device.
Thus medical device makers turn to top-notch metal press companies to fulfill and help them pass the PQ and OP tests. It’s a long process which starts with studies, plan, parameters, testing, and determining consistency before even making it to the final stage of production. It’s a critical process with each component passing rigorous testing and analysis. In this arena, the famous remark in the movie, Apollo 13 holds true, “Failure is not an option. “

Early this year, there was a big scale earthquake that hit Japan, resulting massive damages to the nation. Many provinces and major cities were hit by the massive earthquake with a lot of public destructions as well as human deaths. Besides that, with Japan being a nation which uses nuclear power, a number of nuclear plants were drastically disrupted in its works and there were leaks in the nuclear plants. Panic ensured and the citizens of Japan were in shock and terror.

However, few months after the series of earthquakes occurred in the country, Japan has steadily rebuilding itself. Properties that were severely damaged by the earthquakes were quickly repaired. Nuclear radiations were contained as quickly as the rumors associated with it. The people of Japan, while still in mourn, are moving forwards in helping the nation back to its former glory.
If such a massive earthquake were to hit another country with a lot of nuclear plants, chances are the nation would be in doom. However, thanks to the advanced technology in Japan, nothing catastrophic occurred. It is an amazement at how strong Japan is as a nation and a country. The government of Japan realized that it being a nation within the rings of fire would be on constant fear of being hit by tsunamis or earthquakes. Therefore, a lot of research and development projects were being done to improve the technology.
The Japanese also realized how important it is to be good at civil engineering and a lot of them ventured into the anti-earthquake civil engineering program with the hope of helping their beloved country from being in a terrible state of destruction. It is also these skills in civil engineering that saved the nation from a more terrible fate that could land on the country. Instead of the minimal damages that they had, it might be much worse should their technologies were of little advancement.
We should all look up to Japan at how it has braced the terror that had hit them and managed to come out of it with grace and minimal damages. Nothing but amazement should be showered to this Asian country.