Video #5 - Super Technicians
Monday, January 09, 2006BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Japanese government has designated 397 workers in the auto and electronics industries with the title of Supaa Ginosha, or "Super Technician". This honor salutes the country's newest heroes for the uncanny skills that they have developed on factory floors. Need a perfect photocopier lens, scratch-free down to a hundred-thousandth of a millimeter? How about a semiconductor chip so smooth that a speck of dust on it could loom like a mountain? Or a drill bit capable of boring 3,000 holes through a fingernail-size flake of plastic? Behind each of these industrial marvels is a Super Technician.
Machines alone can't produce prototype parts to this degree of precision. Neither can most people. At Mazda Motor Corporation, there is only 61-year-old Kozo Kaneda, who can discern a hair's width of difference in an engine shaft using just his hands and eyes. "These kinds of technicians are disappearing rapidly," says Shigeru Tsuji, an honorary professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who helped design the Super Technician program. "Society is losing respect for them."
As Japan has grown more affluent, manufacturing jobs have moved to places where labor is cheaper, machines have replaced workers on assembly lines, and young people have started to shun factory work. Shop floor whizzes like Mr. Kaneda are an endangered species. This has caused an identity crisis among the bureaucrats and industrialists who nurtured Japan's manufacturing juggernaut and for whom manufacturing prowess is as central to the nation's self-image as Kabuki drama and sushi. They worry that the country is losing its competitive edge as superskilled workers, mostly in their 50's and 60's retire without passing on their know-how.
The Super Technician project is patterned after a tried-and-true model. Decades ago, Japan created a lofty title: "Bearer of Important Intangible Cultural Assets," to honor and protect the kimono weavers, swordsmiths, potters and other craftsmen rendered nearly obsolete by mass production. The hope now is that the living treasures of the industrial era will be inspired to pass along their skills, and that younger workers will be more eager to take them up.
As an example, a few years ago, Mazda realized that factory talent was thinning at an alarming rate. The company, which is one-third owned by Ford Motor Co., recruited senior workers to teach courses in advanced production skills. Mr. Kaneda, a 37- year veteran, was asked to stay on after the mandatory retirement age to teach lathing techniques. Mazda put a pair of younger assembly-line workers under his tutelage for two years.
Mr. Kaneda dropped out of school at 17 and got a job in a small metalworks shop where he learned by watching and doing. In 1963, he joined the forerunner of Mazda, where he became one of the youngest members of an elite team that make parts for the company's secret project to develop a rotary engine, a technological breakthrough. By contrast, his two current pupils - Toshimitsu Hata, 44, and Kenichi Uesugi, 45 - have spent little of their time on the factory floor actually making things. Mazda, like the rest of Japan's auto industry, turned to automation in the 1980's. Robots came to build the cars, and line workers now mind the machines.
At first, Mr. Kaneda poured his efforts into writing a 200 page instruction manual. But he says he found that the most crucial points couldn't be explained in words: --how hard to push, when to let up, where to apply pressure. "You have to learn with your body." Mr. Kaneda says. He and the other Super Technicians have their work cut out for them. In fact, the Super Technician program has a formidable challenge: turning back the clock of industrial change.
SOURCES:
"Background Notes - Japan" www.state.gov/www/background__notes/japan_0007_bgn.html
"Look, in Japan: It's A Nerd! It's a Brain! It's Super Techie! The Wall Street Journal. www.epiphanycorp.com/jetaa_usa9/library/super-techie.html
Makino Atsuchi, "Recent Developments in Japan's Lifelong Learning Society." www.apec-hurdit.org/lifelong-learning-book/makino.html
LESSON PLAN
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 10-12/Economics, International Relations, World History, International Baccalaureate Programs (IB), Current Events.
PURPOSE: To present activities to be used at a variety of classroom situations in order to enhance student understanding of the Japanese economy and its significance globally.
OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to:
- define "Super Technician."
- analyze the role "Super Technicians" play in Japanese culture.
- research the work done by different "Super Technicians."
- evaluate the impact the program will have on Japanese industry.
- compare and contrast this program with similar programs in the U.S. and in other parts of the world.
MATERIALS:
- Background information provided.
- Resources on Japan available at your school's Media Center and the Public Library System in your area.
- Background information available through Internet "search engines".
ACTIVITIES: May be assigned as group activities or as individual tasks. They may also be designed as preparation for related presentations either by individuals or groups.
- Create a pamphlet to advertise the advantages of tutoring programs with "Super Technicians" for younger workers.
- Compile a list of "Super Technicians" in Japan and the programs being offered to learn their skills.
- Report on similar programs provided by industries, labor unions or government agencies in the United States.
- Report on similar programs in your community.
- Report on similar programs in other parts of the world.
- Write an editorial expressing your opinion on the "Super Technicians."
EVALUATION:
Individual assignments should be graded by the teacher using established criteria.
Group activities, presentations and projects may be evaluated by teachers and students using the following criteria and scale:
Content Creativity Clarity
1= Superior (A) 2=Excellent (B) 3=Good (C) 4=Fair (D) 5=Poor (F)
To print this lesson plan:
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