Coupling the future

In an era where regional competitors are replicating the concept of monozukuri and threatening to push Japan out of mass production markets, it would be easy to conclude that, for some companies, quality plays second fiddle to cheap labor costs.

For Nitto Kohki president Akinobu Ogata, however, nothing could be further from the truth. In recent years, he says, customers the company had previously thought lost have returned and helped increase