Manufacturing Team 1 is also called the assembly team, and our work falls into two main categories.
First, we assemble the parts made by the welding and machining teams and complete them as a single machine.
This mainly involves following drawings and fastening parts with bolts, much like building a large plastic model.
The other part of our job is installing the finished machines at customers’ factories and performing maintenance such as replacing parts on machines already in operation.
Our clients include factories across Japan as well as overseas users, so we travel on business trips of anywhere from 2–3 nights up to about two weeks to carry out work at customer sites.

The machines we build are all custom-made to our customers’ specifications, so no two are the same.
On top of that, the installation locations and operating conditions at each customer’s site also differ.
Depending on the situation, our schedule is constantly changing: some days we work in our own factory, other times we travel to customer sites on business trips.
Being able to take on many different challenges is a major source of job satisfaction.
Working right in front of the customer is nerve-racking, but when the machine starts up safely and the customer is pleased, I feel very proud.

Because the work changes from day to day, there are many different tasks and a lot to learn.
On top of that, we usually don’t have a fixed manual.
For example, one assembly task involves heating part of a component with a gas burner so it expands, then inserting a bearing into the widened section. How hot to make it is something you can only learn by feel.
When I was first assigned, I wanted to “keep taking on new things” and “quickly learn the next task,” but in reality there are many things you can only learn through your own experience. I’ve come to realize that just being told what to do is not enough to become like my senior colleagues.

It’s been about two years since I was transferred to this department, but there are still many tasks I haven’t experienced yet and a lot left to learn.
Even for work I’ve already done before, each task has its own tricks and key points, so I’m still far from the level of my senior colleagues.
Since we usually work in teams of at least two, paired with a senior colleague, I hope to keep learning many more things.
One thing I do in my own way is to keep notes on the tasks I did that day, the types of machines and tools I used, and key points of the work.
I hope that someday I’ll be able to do anything without needing to look at these notes anymore.