Japan's manufacturing at crossroads, electronics giant Toshiba struggling for survival

September 28, 2017

Japan's manufacturing at crossroads, electronics giant Toshiba struggling for survival

The huge object stands right in front of Japan Railways Kurume Station in Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan. It is actually a drum-shaped clock with mechanical items built inside.
With a height of 5.9 meters and decorations on the pillar and on the base, the clock was established at the station square in 1999 in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of an inventor who hailed from Kurume City.
Hisashige Tanaka is well known to local people with his nickname, Karakuri (mechanism) Giemon.  Before dying at the age of 82 in 1881, 14 years after the Meiji Restoration, he designed and made a number of mechanical tools and toys.
His masterpieces include the "Yumihiki Doji" boy, a windup doll with an arrow fixed to the bow, and the "Jimeisho" perpetual clock which is said to have kept moving with a single wind for a year, with as many as about 1,000 handmade parts fabricated inside.
Displays about his life and works can be seen at Toshiba Science Museum, as a manufacturing factory he built in Tokyo in 1875 is known as the root company for Toshiba Corp., an electronics giant which has been globally active but is at the brink of collapse.
Toshiba is trying to keep going by selling its well performing assets, notably its flash memory division, but it is uncertain if the scenario goes well.
Passers-by who pay attention to the Giemon clock are limited, but some people look up at the object when the clock opens and starts a small show.
The clock face rotates and opens every one hour, from 8 in the morning to 7 in the evening. Then, mechanical miniature toys appear from the inside. Among them are the boy doll, who takes and shoots four arrows one by one, the perpetual clock and the figure of Giemon, who speaks about his works by himself while music is played for the 5-minute show.
Standing at the top of the clock are two chickens, who light the clock face when it is open.
Karakuri Giemon was born as the son of a tortoiseshell craftsman in the hub of Kurume, which was a castle town. He displayed a strong curiosity about invention from his childhood and started inventing mechanical toys.
He made a success by showing his works at various events in Kyoto, Osaka and elsewhere and then moved to Tokyo in 1873, when he was 74.
Giemon's statues can be found at a few places in Kurume. One of them stands at the entrance of a building which houses research companies and organizations at a riverside park.
Toshiba's fix is compared to the 2016 deal in which a Taiwan conglomerate bought Sharp Corp., one of Japan's time-honored electronics makers, to bail it out.
Sharp once made a big success by releasing many innovative products, including liquid crystal wall TVs, but its decline started soon because it failed to keep up with a competition from its rivals.
The deal was taken as an incident which symbols the decline of Japan's manufacturing industry with long years of craftsmanship. Meanwhile, Toshiba's plight is attributed to its failure in the atomic power reactor business.
Giemon's statue at the research complex appears to be worriedly watching Toshiba's current difficulty.
It is unknown whether Toshiba's fall can be averted, but the clock at the station square will keep ticking, assuring people that his legacies will be inherited to the future as the backbone of Japan's manufacturing spirit.