Newsletter 50 (November 10, 2022)

In this issue: SEG financial results & Integrated Report / Americas SEG Executives Meeting / Interview with SEI President Inoue / SEWS Edmonton safety celebration / Team walking challenge in the US / 5th HR Conference in Mexico / KPMC trade show report

On November 2, SEI published the Sumitomo Electric Group's financial results for the first half of this fiscal year. There was plenty of good news as the SEG saw increases in net sales and operating income compared to the same period last year. These better results weren't limited to just one or two business units either — all five business units recorded higher first-half net sales than last year. Overall, net sales in the Americas accounted for 19.7% of the SEG worldwide total. More details can be found in SEI's summary, available here.

For a more comprehensive look at what the Sumitomo Electric Group does, there's also the Integrated Report 2022 that was published last month. This document provides information about our company philosophy, growth strategy, key products, and corporate governance. Data on recent financial performance is also included. For the fiscal year that ended on March 31, SEI reported revenue of approximately $30 billion, which put Sumitomo Electric on the Fortune Global 500 list for the 28th year in a row. To download a copy of the Integrated Report, click here. 

Americas SEG Executives Meeting

Given the size and scope of the Sumitomo Electric Group, it's important to promote good communication among different parts of the organization on a regular basis. One way this has traditionally been done is by holding a conference every year where all the company presidents in a particular region can get together in person to discuss various relevant issues. Although the pandemic had put this tradition on hold for the past couple of years, thankfully this year we were able to hold such a meeting on October 10 and 11 in Houston, Texas. 

The Americas SEG Executives Meeting was attended by representatives from more than 20 SEG companies in the US, Mexico, and Brazil. Also among the attendees were seven participants from SEI corporate headquarters in Japan as well as two participants from Sumitomo Electric Automotive Europe in Germany. This brought the total number of attendees to 60, which was much fewer than in years past. But perhaps because of the smaller size of the meeting, there was more interaction than usual between presenters and the audience. These interactions surely contributed to the meeting's objective of fostering communication. 

The agenda for the two days itself was wide-ranging, with 22 presentations overall. On Day 1, attendees heard about the SEG 2030 Vision, operations of six group companies, and the many activities of intercompany committees and working groups in our region. Day 2 was comprised of presentations from SEI's accounting, logistics, and HR departments, plus an informative talk on several topics from SEUHO Legal. 

As noted above, the location of the executives meeting was Houston, Texas. Some fun facts about Houston: its greater metropolitan area is the fifth most populous in the US, and encompasses nearly as many square miles as the entire state of Massachusetts. But more significantly for the Sumitomo Electric Group, the Houston area is where the third and newest manufacturing plant of Sumiden Wire Products Corporation is located. SWPC's Dayton Plant was established in 2017 as a site for manufacturing high-quality PC (prestressed concrete) strand for the construction industry. Visitors from SEI, including SEI President Osamu Inoue, were given a tour of the plant as part of their business trip to Texas. 

Back row from left, SEI denoted in bold: Takahide Saiki, Robert Nelson, Jon Cornelius, Brian Burr, Yuichi Sano, Osamu Inoue, Masatoshi Nakata, Kazuo Oe, Curtis Whitaker, Ryu Goto, Dai Iwakiri. In front: Kenichi Shimizu, Hiroshi Otagaki.

Interview with SEI President Inoue

After the executive meeting, we had a chance to ask SEI President Osamu Inoue about his impressions of SEG activities in the Americas. Inoue-san's involvement in our region goes back more than 30 years. He worked at Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems in Kentucky for six-and-a-half years from 1990, and he said there was a period of time back then when he traveled to Juarez, Mexico "almost every week." In the '90s, unlike today, there wasn't much in the way of organized collaboration among SEG companies, so we asked him about that first.

What do you think of the various activities we're doing to strengthen cooperation within the Americas? 

Area committees were formed as a result of the executive meetings we had been having [in Japan] for some time. I believe the first such committee was related to employee welfare. We recognized there were things such as medical insurance that, if group companies worked together, we could benefit collectively. The fact is that all companies, big and small, have to respond to many of the same questions and do many of the same tasks, but it's not as though all companies have specialists on staff to handle every type of corporate function, such as in HR or accounting or legal affairs. So the current system in which SEUHO hires for these corporate functions, so as to be able to provide various types of support to group companies, is in my view an extremely good thing.

From your perspective, what are the unique strengths of the Americas region?

Let's see, one of the first business units to come here was the Special Steel Wire Division, when the Sumiden Wire plant in California was established. Then came wiring harness production, and then various other divisions, one after another. Today, although not all businesses are doing equally well, I must say that we are all very persistent. Perhaps this is due to our tradition, but everyone works very hard from the time we start a new business until it gets to a point where things are going well. I think this is a strength of the Sumitomo Electric Group. Even if we run a deficit, we don't just shut down and leave. We're tenacious.

Also, in terms of the US, I see this as a country where people feel free to express their opinions. Even in our interactions with customers, we can exchange opinions not only as a supplier but also on equal footing. I think that's a wonderful thing. Therefore, in whatever job you might be doing, I hope employees will continue to say what they think, and what they think is right, without hesitation. If we continue to make the most of this fine quality, I think our businesses will keep growing.

What is your message to Americas employees?

On this occasion, I would like to say to everyone at SEG companies in the Americas, thank you very much for all of your efforts and please continue doing your best!

Safety celebration at SEWS Edmonton

Earlier this year, the Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems plant in Edmonton, Kentucky received their ninth consecutive Governor's Safety and Health Award. This was in recognition of the plant's outstanding safety record, which at the time of the award was 6.8 million hours without a lost-time incident or workplace illness — a record that started all the way back in August 2012!

To show appreciation to everyone at the Edmonton Plant for their longstanding commitment to workplace safety, SEWS hosted a safety celebration there on October 3. The event was an outdoor lunch that began with short speeches from SEWS executives, followed by words of commendation from three state officials: Kentucky Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman, State Senator Max Wise, and State Representative-Elect Amy Neighbors. 

Prior to the celebration, these visiting officials were given a tour of the Edmonton plant, where high-quality electronic components for cars are produced. This includes components such as junction boxes and electronic control units, each of which is necessary to support the ever-more advanced features — including safety features, of course! — that get incorporated by car manufacturers into their newest models.

Photos: Lt. Governor Jaqueline Coleman delivers her remarks to SEWS associates; at right, she chats with SEWS President Tokiji Aoyama. 

Team walking challenge in the US

Some other "millions" that deserve recognition are the 52 million steps which were recorded, in total, by everyone who took part in the Team Walking Challenge that concluded on Oct. 9. During this four-week wellness activity, we had more than 240 participants, grouped into 47 teams, from nine SEG companies in the US. Each of the teams was balanced with beginners and advanced members to ensure that the activity was competitive. The final rankings of the teams were determined by the average number of steps taken by each member of a team. 

At the end of the challenge, the team in first place was Happy Feet from Judd Wire, who logged 1,768,020 steps, which is about as many steps as you would need to walk from New York City to Chicago. Congratulations to team members Ephraim Franklin, Tabitha Hyytinen, Enid Junker, Denise Mankowsky, and Mark Predmore for this remarkable "feat" of sustained exercise! Honorable mentions also go to the other teams that finished in the top five: Walking Fit (SEWS), Lucky Walkers (SWS-USA), The Walkie Talkies (JUDD), and Soleful Strutters (SCI). 

Competition aside, it's worth keeping in mind that a regular walking habit offers many health benefits, such as taming your sweet tooth, boosting your immune system, and easing joint pain. To learn more, here's a short article from Harvard Health with some details.  

HR Conference in Mexico

On Oct. 19 and 20, around 50 people from our Mexico group companies' HR departments covered a lot of ground, both literally and figuratively, at their 5th Human Resources Conference in Chihuahua, northwestern Mexico. Participants got to walk around host company CONTEC's Camargo plant, as they heard about various improvements in HR practices that had been made at the facility. More walking came later in the form of a wellness activity: a 4-mile hike along the Presa Rejón, a dam near Chihuahua City that is popular for hiking and mountain biking. 

This year's conference brought together participants from several Mexico companies in both the automotive wiring harness and industrial material divisions. Both types of companies were well served by the presentations from invited speakers, who gave excellent talks on subjects such as salaries and benefits, new labor regulations, and how to create a company culture of high performance and high retention. Participants also had the opportunity to give presentations themselves, as best practices for recruiting new employees were shared by teams from ATR Laguna, ATR Nayarit, CONTEC Camargo, and CONTEC Sinaloa. Additional talks were given by members of SEWS and SEUHO, who participated virtually. The large number of topics on the agenda was a good reflection of the variety of responsibilities that HR departments have at all of the SEG companies. 

Technology introduction by KPMC

When a company develops a great new technology, one of the first places they will want to take their innovation is a trade show, because that's where a lot of people interested in a specific field will be in the same place at the same time. In the case of Keystone Powdered Metal Company, that place and time was Detroit from Oct. 9 to 13 at the IEEE Energy Conversion Conference and Exposition (ECCE), a leading event in the world of electrical and electromechanical energy conversion systems.

ECCE was the ideal setting for KPMC to showcase a new powder metal technology called soft magnetic composites to engineers in the US, particularly those working in the automotive industry. According to Tim Geiman, KPMC's Director of Advanced Product Engineering, "soft magnetic composites have been a focus within the Sintered Metal Components Division in Japan, and this conference introduced the material's capability to create more efficient electric motors to the North American market." For example, with soft magnetic composites it's possible to make a new type of motor that is thinner and lighter but just as powerful as the conventional kind of motor it could replace. To read more about this application, click here.

From left: Naoto Igarashi (KPMC), Tatsuya Saito (SEI), and Tim Geiman (KPMC).

Many thanks to this issue's contributors: Dinah Psencik, Jeffrey O'Brien, Jon Cornelius (SWPC); Laura Upchurch (SEWS); Elaine Williams (One Stop Wellness); Henry Garcia, Ivan Servin (CONTEC); Tim Geiman (KPMC); Pavee Suvagondha (SEUHO). The interview with SEI President Inoue was translated from Japanese by Leo Kohyama (SEUHO).

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