UD Gemba Voices: On the factory floor in Japan and Thailand

On the factory floor in Japan and Thailand

Takahiro Sasaki’s gemba is the manufacturing floor at the Ageo factory. He is in charge of equipment maintenance. The number of certificates and awards he has won bear witness to his gemba spirit.

Sasaki, however, doesn’t see his job as simply keeping the machines running; he sees much further down the line: “I want to improve the safety and quality of our work so that we deliver quality products and services to our customers.” This sense of responsibility motivates him to go the extra mile in his gemba everyday.

He is in constant communication with other gemba people, processing key information but also picking up all those small details and nuances that are often difficult to catch. “This allows me to capture the condition of the facility from every angle,” says Takahiro Sasaki.

Working at UD Assembly EOL Line at UD Bangkok Plant, Somyot Ngonlee is a line leader. What Somyot appreciates the most is the teamwork spirit at UD Trucks. “We support each other with a concerted effort to achieve a common goal. He spent a lot of his spare time learning English, to improve the communication with global colleagues and customers.

He participates on trainings about new truck technologies and also new technologies for increasing the efficiency on the assembly line.