What Does OKUMA Mean to You?

I’ve been with Okuma for 28 years now, so I’m pretty deep into my understanding of what our company stands for. Every once in a while I try to imagine, what do we look like to someone who’s just getting to know us? When you look past the machine tools and all the technology, what kind of company stands behind them? Here are a couple of my thoughts about who we are and our approach to serving our customers. While Okuma is named after our founder Eiichi Okuma (Nagoya, Japan), each letter in our company name can also have significant meaning.

O: Open Possibilities
For more than a century, Okuma has pursued excellence, leveraging our master craftsmanship to create innovative technologies that break new ground. We’re committed to helping users gain competitive advantage through the open possibilities of our machine tools, today and into the future.

K: Kaizen
Kaizen is the practice of continuous improvement, or as I like to think of it, “getting better at getting better.”

U: Unique
Okuma has the ability to offer unique customer applications. A couple notable examples include thread phase matching, and an accessibility interface developed to assist workers at the Lighthouse for the Blind to use our machines. There are many more examples out there. There’s also the Okuma App Store where you can get a wide range of apps to enhance the efficiency of your machine tools. And if you really want “unique,” you can create apps yourself.

M: Monozukuri
Monozukuri means making things BETTER than EVER. Monozukuri is a way of life. With each day’s work we constantly ask ourselves: “how can we do this better?” Here are a few examples of innovations that have arisen from the Monozukuri mindset. Our Thermo-Friendly Concept, which minimizes thermal deformation; Collision Avoidance System, which prevents collisions with the machine and workpiece, and Machining Navi, which assists in cutting difficult materials and chooses the optimal speed(s) at which your machine can avoid chatter. OSP suite is another great example. This combines the Intelligent Technologies I just described with “suite apps” that include: Okuma application software, apps jointly developed with tool, measuring equipment, and system manufacturers to solve customers’ shop floor problems, as well as premium apps that digitize production and machining instructions plus setup information, to make your processes more efficient.

A: Assistance
Our Distribution network has over 80 applications engineers and nearly 550 service and parts professionals on staff. Okuma America has 22 applications engineers and 14 service engineers . There are countless other people working behind the scenes at Okuma America and Okuma Corporation in Japan. We take our Mission very much to heart: “We passionately pursue a customer for life.” Actually, you can read about our Vision, Mission and Values here, and that sums us up pretty well too.

When you get a chance, let us know what you think. And thank you for the opportunity to help in any way we can.

Ron Raniszewski is Senior Applications Engineer, Okuma America Corporation.

More: Check out our Corporate Introduction video to see a quick three-minute summary of Okuma America.