A Fading District (Ota 大田) Pins Its Hopes on a Bobsled

Ota

Ōta is a city 50 miles northwest of Tokyo, in eastern Gunma prefecture, Japan. This city is located between the Tone and Watarase rivers. Wikipedia

Area: 68.14 sq miles (176.5 km²)

東京小作坊打造大雪橇媲美寶馬

MARTIN FACKLER 報道 2013年02月08日

Kosuke Okahara for The New York Times

東京——對東京衰落的 大田工業區而言，這玩意看起來不像是可能的救命稻草：一架放在狹小作坊里的黑色、雪茄狀、沙發大小的雪橇，身穿藍色工作服的人在旁邊看着它。但是，如果其 創造者的夢想成真的話，這架大雪橇將參加明年冬季奧運會的比賽，作為這裡微型家庭作坊自豪的驗證：小作坊可以生產出更棒的大雪橇，比當今世界領先的雪橇生 產商——包括法拉利(Ferrari)和寶馬(BMW)——的都好。
去年，當地32個小工廠的業主們聯合成立了一個合作企業，為日本冬季奧運會代表團打造一架雙人雪橇，現年46歲的細貝淳一(Junichi Hosogai)是合作企業的頭。他說，“日本製造業的情緒變得太黯淡了。如果能打敗法拉利將會帶來一個真正的激勵。”
通過設立這樣的目標，細貝的團隊刻意製造一個挑戰，要重振上個世紀六七十年代日本的輝煌。那個時期，日本通過努力工作、團結一心，以及超越西方領先企業的決心，佔領了一個又一個的全球行業。不過，細貝及其雪橇製造團隊的成員稱，他們這樣做不僅僅是為懷舊、或振奮士氣。
他們說他們正努力拯救一種工業技藝傳統，該傳統曾使藍領的大田成為把日本推入世界經濟強國行列的高質量製造中心。在大田的全盛時期，這個密集的社區 中活躍着2萬家小作坊，其中大多數不超過車庫大小，它們大量製造了技藝精湛的金屬零部件，最終裝配到了充斥全球市場的日本製造的汽車、船隻和電子產品中。
如今，據當地政府估算，留下來的作坊已不到4000家，而且數量還在快速減少。但是，儘管有這些明顯的衰落跡象，細貝和其他人稱，大田之所以未能重振自身，是因為它把自己禁錮在昔日的輝煌之中，這頗具諷刺意味。
大田的小工廠主們年輕時經歷了激動人心的經濟成功，年老後變得因循守舊，無法跟上全球經濟的轉變。按照細貝等許多人的說法，有太多的當地作坊把自己 逼到了崩潰的境地，因為它們試圖與中國、韓國等進行大規模製造的國家競爭。這些國家正採用日本的老手段——價格戰——來打敗日本。
他們說，大田必須採用新策略，打入目前由德國和意大利北部等主導的那種高端的、更多由客戶定製的產品市場。這些地方恰好也是製造世界領先的大雪橇的地方。細貝說，在冬奧會上擊敗他們將能證明，大田也可以在其他時候擊敗他們。
不過，他和支持者都承認，改變舊習不容易，尤其是在老齡化的日本。對大田及其小公司而言，最大的改變將是不再依賴大公司或政府來指明方向，而是學會自我創新。
大田區產業振興協會(Ota City Industrial Promotion Organization)的一名官員奧田耕士(Koji Okuda)說，“我們必須戒掉盲目追隨大公司的習慣。大田需要在製造業建立名聲，就像神戶在牛肉上的名聲那樣。”
的確，日本大企業為了尋求更低的勞動力成本，把生產向海外轉移，大田因此遭受重創。當地人為變化感到悲哀：那些充滿金屬壓床有規律的聲音和忙碌工人的街區或已被遺棄，或被千篇一律的寧靜“公寓”樓取代。
為了重振該地區的工業前景，細貝召集了一群小工廠主們，他們大部分和他一樣，年齡在三、四十歲，其中許多人從父輩和祖父輩那裡繼承了工廠。因為其不 同的背景，細貝成為這個團體天生的領導者。細貝曾在一家小工廠當過一段學徒，離開後創立了自己的製造公司，那是在1992年，正是日本經濟開始走下坡路的 時候。他的公司材料株式會社(Material)生產交通設備的零部件，克服了種種困難，如今雇有28名員工，按照大田的標準，已是一家大工廠。
合作企業中的許多人經歷過更艱難的時光，43歲的橫田信一郎(Shinichiro Yokota)就是其中之一。他從父親那裡繼承的攝影器材零部件公司兩年前破產了。
橫田後來成功地重組公司，轉型生產定製汽車零部件。他說，“我們都感覺到大田的未來存在危機。”
細貝說，他希望這種頑強精神將為大田增添幹勁，從而打造出一架更棒的大雪橇。他還希望能利用另一種文化財富，即日本對質量完美主義的痴迷。
大田的製造業始於一個世紀以前，當地漁民學會了金屬製造，為一個如今已不存在的日本帝國海軍造船廠生產零部件，這一傳統在人們對技藝仍明顯表現出的 驕傲中能夠感受到。走進當地任何一家遍地是油垢的小作坊，老闆一定會向來人展示他怎樣用手工把金屬塑造成零部件，其精密度超過絕大多數電腦操控的機械工具 所能達到的。
在大規模製造的廉價智能手機和電子音樂播放器時代，這種技藝超出了消費者的需求範圍。但是去年，細貝和朋友們決意去尋找一種能把這些技藝更好地用於大田復興的辦法。
他選中了奧運會，因為東京當時正在申辦夏季奧運會。他起初的想法是為射箭運動打造複合金屬弓，而這種器材目前由韓國製造。不過，他了解到日本對任何可以用作武器的產品嚴格管制後，放棄了這個念頭。
接下來，奧田辦公室的一名管理人員想到了大雪橇。它的框架需要採用精密的金屬部件，必須承受得住在冰道上以高速公路的速度下滑所造成的應力。問題是，大田幾乎沒有人見到過實際的大雪橇。
當地政府請求一所大學的體育系把他們的一架德國製造的舊雪橇借給細貝的團隊，隨後他們將其拆開，以便倒序製造雪橇。兩周內，他們造出了自己的部件，他們說這些部件比德國造的更堅固，因為是用整塊鋼材塑造的，而不是用分別製造的零件焊接而成的。
這架雪橇已經有了一個強有力的開端。上個月，日本女隊用它在全國測試賽中取得了第一名。委員會現在計劃再為男隊造一架雪橇。他們希望，最終能說服男女隊都使用大田造的雪橇參加在俄羅斯索契舉辦的2014年冬季奧運會。
細貝說，“我們需要一個激動人心的突破來說服大田接受更開放的心態、更多的創造性。能摘取一枚金牌的話就達到目的了。”

翻譯：黃錚

Tokyo Journal

A Fading District Pins Its Hopes on a Bobsled

By MARTIN FACKLER February 08, 2013

 

TOKYO — It seems an unlikely source of salvation for this city’s run-down, industrial Ota district: a black two-person bobsled about the size of a sofa that sits in a cramped workroom tended by men in blue jumpsuits. Yet, if its creators’ dreams come true, it will race in the Winter Olympics next year as proud proof that this area’s tiny, family-run manufacturing workshops can build a better bobsled than the world’s leading sled makers, a group that includes the likes of Ferrari and BMW.
“The mood has grown so dark in Japanese manufacturing,” said Junichi Hosogai, 46, a leader of the group of 32 small-factory owners who joined up last year to create the bobsled for Japan’s Olympic team. “Beating Ferrari would be a real boost.”
By thus setting its sights, Mr. Hosogai’s group is intentionally making a challenge that echoes Japan’s glory days in the 1960s and ’70s, when the nation captured global industry after industry through hard work, sticking together and making a determined effort to overtake the front-running companies in the West. But Mr. Hosogai and his small band of bobsled builders say this is more than an exercise in nostalgia or morale building.
They say they are trying to rescue a tradition of industrial craftsmanship that once made blue-collar Ota a center for the high-quality manufacturing that propelled Japan to economic greatness. During the district’s heyday, its densely packed neighborhoods teemed with about 20,000 tiny workshops, most no larger than a garage, that churned out the finely crafted metal parts that went into the Japanese-made automobiles, ships and electronics that flooded world markets.
Today, the local government estimates that fewer than 4,000 of those workshops survive, with their numbers dwindling fast. Yet, despite these obvious signs of decline, Ota has failed to revive itself because it remains shackled to its past triumphs, Mr. Hosogai and others say.
After experiencing almost unimaginable economic success in their youth, the now-aging small-factory owners of Ota have grown too entrenched in their ways to keep up with changes in the global economy. To hear Mr. Hosogai and many others here tell it, too many owners have pushed local workshops to collapse by trying to compete with mass-production countries like China and South Korea, which are beating Japan at its old game of underpricing rivals.
Instead, they say, Ota must adopt a new strategy and break into the more customized, high-end manufacturing now dominated by countries like Germany and Italy. These are also the places that build the world’s leading bobsleds. A victory against them in the Olympics would be proof that Ota can beat them at other times, too, Mr. Hosogai said.
Still, he and his supporters admit that breaking old habits is hard, especially in graying Japan. The biggest change would be for Ota and its small companies to stop relying on big corporations or the government to point the way, and instead learn to innovate on their own.
“We have to kick the habit of just mindlessly following big companies,” said Koji Okuda, a director at Ota’s Industrial Promotion Organization. “Ota needs to become to manufacturing what Kobe is to beef.”

Indeed, Ota has been hit hard as big Japanese companies shifted production abroad in search of lower labor costs. Locals bemoan how neighborhoods that once pulsated with the clanging of metal presses and bustle of workers have grown deserted, or become filled with hushed, cookie-cutter apartment complexes known as “mansions.”

To revive the area’s industrial fortunes, Mr. Hosogai gathered together a group of small-factory owners who, like him, are mostly in their 30s and 40s, with many who inherited businesses from their fathers and grandfathers. Mr. Hosogai proved the natural leader because of his different background: after working an apprentice period at a small factory, he broke away to start his own manufacturing company in 1992, just as Japan’s economy collapsed. Despite the difficulties, his company, Material, which makes parts for communication devices, now has 28 employees, making his factory large by Ota’s standards.
Many in the group have known harder times. One is Shinichiro Yokota, 43, whose camera parts company went bankrupt two years ago.
“We all feel the crisis in Ota’s future,” said Mr. Yokota, who managed to restart his company as a producer of custom-made car parts.
Mr. Hosogai says he hopes such tenaciousness will help give Ota the drive to build a better bobsled. He also hopes to tap another cultural asset, Japan’s perfectionist obsession with quality.
In Ota, where manufacturing started a century ago when local fishermen learned how to make metal parts for a now-defunct Imperial Navy shipyard, this tradition is displayed in a still-evident pride in craftsmanship. Enter one of the district’s grimy little workshops, and the owner is sure to demonstrate how he can shape a metal part by hand with more precision than most computerized machine tools.
This is overkill in an era of cheap, mass-produced smartphones and digital music players. But last year, Mr. Hosogai and his friends set out to find a way to put those skills to better use in revitalizing Ota.
He chose the Olympics because Tokyo was making a bid to host the Summer Games. His first idea was to make the composite bows for archery, which are now produced in South Korea, but gave up after learning that Japan severely restricted anything that could be used as a weapon.
Then an official in Mr. Okuda’s office hit on the idea of a bobsled, which needs precision metal parts for its frame that must withstand the stresses of shooting down an iced track at highway-like speeds. The problem was that few in Ota had ever seen a bobsled.
The local government asked a university’s sports department to lend it an old German-made bobsled, which members of Mr. Hosogai’s group then reverse-engineered. Within two weeks, they had made their own parts, which they said were stronger than the German ones because they were shaped from single pieces of steel, instead of welded from separate pieces.
The sled has had a strong start. In December, it was used by a women’s team to place first in national tryouts. The group now plans to build a second sled for men. It eventually hopes to persuade both the men and the women to use Ota’s bobsleds in the Winter Games, in Sochi, Russia.
“We need a dramatic breakthrough to convince Ota to be more open-minded and creative,” Mr. Hosogai said. “A gold medal would do the trick.”