We Are Tomodachi Spring / Summer 2018

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23there were major setbacks along the way, Yamamoto eventually made changes to put the business on track for better efficiency. Digitalization and automation turned most of the employees into programmers. Now, it takes only a few operators to run the machines.Visit the head office and you’ll find rows of state-of-the-art processing machinery in the first-floor factory. However, employees are hardly anywhere to be seen. But go up to the second floor and the scene changes dramatically. Casually dressed workers sit at their computers in a spacious office decorated primarily in pink hues. The office feels like an IT venture firm, rather than a metalworking factory.“Nothing makes me happier than the fact that we have created an environment where people are more motivated and can learn new things,” Yamamoto continues. “Freed from simple routine tasks, workers can creatively seek out optimal processing sequences and consider ways of applying technology.”HILLTOP has become a magnet for talented engineers from Japan and abroad. The company has formed a new Research and Development Division and is devoting energy to growing a business that provides support to manufacturing firms. HILLTOP set up shop in California when it opened a factory there in 2014. The response has been tremendous, and now the company has over 600 corporate clients, among them The Walt Disney Company. Yamamoto says with enthusiasm, “I want to handle even more of the high-mix, low-volume production that’s in demand now, help develop manufacturing around the world and contribute to innovation.”Prototypes cut from aluminum. Digitalizing fabrication processes allows HILLTOP to quickly adjust to customer requests and remake items.President and CEO Masanori Yamamoto (center) and his two younger brothers—Executive Vice President Shosaku Yamamoto (left), who participated in the interview, and Senior Managing Director Shoji Yamamoto (right)—worked together to create the HILLTOP System.Among the engineers working in the equipment development division’s lab are French graduates of prestigious grandes écoles.