Tetsu Matsui, president and COO of Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191), said in a recent interview with Japan Rubber Weekly that although net sales fell due to currency exchange losses caused by a higher yen and despite a cloudier picture that falling business confidence paints for future profits, the company’s performance has been largely as planned. Matsui said that Sumitomo...
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) has opened a new training facility at its main automotive hose production center in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture. Known as “Matsusaka Shikokan,” the training facility was established in order to improve the skills of the personnel who will support future growth for Sumitomo Riko. It includes an “F Lab” for implementation of the “F-Ken” foreman-training program,...
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) has set up the tentatively named New Automobile Product Development Laboratory at its plant in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture. The company is positioning the Laboratory as a major part of its management vision for 2020. The Laboratory will work with automakers to apply Sumitomo Riko’s “Smart Rubber” in developing new technologies. One such technology will check...
The period since the 1960s has seen a spurt of overseas expansion from Japanese companies involved in the rubber industry. This expansion has followed through from moving into Korea and Southeast Asia, centering on Taiwan, in the 1970s to North America in the 1980s and, since 2000, through into China and the ASEAN region. Recently, momentum has been gaining also...
The settlement results for labor force wages and annual bonuses have started to come out from the “spring offensive” negotiations in Japan. The Japanese Rubber Workers Union Confederation is comprised of 58 member unions. Forty-eight of those put forth wage demands to the companies of the unions’ respective labor forces, from which 20 unions have reached conclusions. Regarding annual bonuses, 45...
Using demand through March 2015 as a baseline, Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) is, on a consolidated basis, anticipating close to double-digit revenue growth for 2016 with its industrial hose business. Going forward, this will be backed by overseas markets. Sumitomo Riko already has production bases in China and India, and it is expanding also into other regions, with particular...
