I was interested in fashion and when I graduated from high school I got a job at a bag manufacturer. After starting with inventory management, I was eventually assigned to repair jobs. I felt fulfilled to repair and revive bags which were used with much care by customers. In the fourth year, however, I was ordered to move to the sales department, out of the blue. I couldn’t imagine myself struggling to meet a quota, giving up a holiday, and be overwhelmed by negotiation with customers. I therefore looked for a manufacturing job and got to work at UT, where I am now working at a battery plant.

First, I was in charge of the process of wrapping and applying the exterior label of AA batteries and performing inspection. After that, I did wrapping the products as sets. Then I became a leader in the assembly process of attaching a lid called a seal plate to a battery containing electrolyte.

You may think that a battery factory is quite automated but in fact, some production lines still use old equipment, and the factory needs a lot of work done by people. Although there are manuals for the manufacturing equipment, there are no procedure manuals for operating the equipment, and the experienced workers have to teach their juniors. Your skill levels are clearly reflected in the results by numbers such as utilization and failure rates. There I felt fun in the operation.

When I felt more fulfilled with my work than in the past, I again received the similar assignment order as I did at the bag-maker. My new assignment was to be a manager in the management department, away from the manufacturing site. There I began to look at UT’s outsourced work at the battery plant in general, including the financial balance and personnel aspects.