On August 22, 2024, the HGAP-SZ 2024 Fiscal Year Annual party and the Anniversary of Sullair brand in China celebration were successfully held. All colleagues gathered together to celebrate the grand event and embark on the future together.At this special moment, executives including Mike Aoki, the senior executive advisor of Hitachi; Henry Tanaka, the managing director of HIES; John Randall, President & CEO of HGAP; and Yoshi Tachibana, the General Manager of HGAP Suzhou, each took the stage to deliver their speeches. They thanked the employees for their dedication, acknowledged the company’s accomplishments in the past years, and extended heartfelt wishes for HGAP’s future.Mike Aoki, Senior executive advisor of Hitachi Henry Tanaka, Managing director of HIES John Randall, President & CEO of HGAP Yoshi Tachibana, General Manager of HGAP Suzhou At the evening party, everyone shared the joy of HGAP-SZ winning the "Best Employer Award in Greater Suzhou" and the "Stable Employment Award". These awards fully reflect the company's outstanding performance in employee care and social responsibility, as well as its excellent performance and good reputation in the industry.In addition, HGAP-SZ specially honored employees with service of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and even 30 years. Among them, Murphy Liao, who won the thirty-year service award, was invited on stage to share his experience and insights. His sincere words motivated all employees to contribute to HGAP’s future endeavors.

The 30th anniversary of Sullair brand in China was successfully held at HGAP-SZ on August 22nd, 2024.Three decades ago, Sullair brand started its business in China. From an initial team of just a few people to becoming a leader in the industry today, we have witnessed technological breakthroughs and endured the test of time.Driven by innovation and winning the market with quality, every step of this journey, filled with wisdom and sweat, has become an important milestone in the development history of Sullair brand in China.In 1994, Sullair China began to take shape in Shenzhen In 1995, Groundbreaking ceremony for Sullair Shenzhen factory In 1997, Opening ceremony of Sullair Shenzhen In 2002, Celebration of record production at Shenzhen factory In 2008, Opening celebration of Sullair Suzhou In 2008, First air compressor rolls off the assembly line at Sullair Suzhou factory In 2017, Sullair officially joins Hitachi Group In 2024, the 30th Anniversary of Sullair Brand in ChinaAt the celebration, Aoki san, Senior Executive Advisor of Hitachi Limited; Tanaka san, HIES Executive Managing Director & COO; Mr. John Randall, HGAP President & CEO, were all present. HIES President & CEO Takeuchi san joined via remote connection to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sullair brand entering China, witnessing this historic moment together.“Today is an important milestone as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sullair brand in China. We are grateful for the support from our partners over the years. We will continue to enhance our capacities, expand our business scope, and drive growth through sustainable development and digital transformation, connecting green products digitally to achieve greater success.”—Charlie Takeuchi, President & CEO, HIES“In the 30 years of vigorous development since the Sullair brand entered China, we have continuously adjusted, transformed, and built teams for future sustained growth. Having faced challenges from the pandemic and market tests, we have grown through overcoming numerous difficulties. Sullair will continue to focus on reliability, durability, and high performance as our foundation, centered on the customers, to build a more valuable future for the company.”—John Randall, President & CEO, HGAP“HGAP-SZ has now become one of the important enterprises in Suzhou Industry Park (SIP) High-tech zone. We eagerly look forward to HGAP-SZ continuing to root itself in SIP, bring more advanced concepts, quality products, and capital technology, continuously empowering the development and technological progress of SIP’s high-end equipment manufacturing, ushering in an even more brilliant next 30 years.”—Tang Hao, Party Secretary of Suzhou Industrial Park High-tech Zone & Free Trade ZoneOn the growth path of Sullair brand in China, the strong support of many partner is indispensable. For this celebration, we also specially invited some distributors, suppliers, and customers to witness this together. Additionally, we established the “Outstanding Contribution Award,” “Long-term Loyal Partner Award,” and “Strategic Cooperation Award” to thank them for their strong support and cooperation in technological innovation, market expansion and service upgrades, jointly promoting the progress and development of the industry.

The Hitachi Group's Quality Management Division officially announced the internal selection results for the "Outstanding Quality Individual for Fiscal Year 2023", with Jessie Shi from the HGAP-SZ Quality Department receiving this honor. This award is not only a recognition of Jessie’s personal efforts but also a vivid interpretation of Hitachi Group's corporate culture, which continuously strives for quality improvement.Hitachi Group has always prioritized quality as essential for business success, continually striving to improve and refine it. Presently, as businesses embrace digital transformation, HGAP-SZ has pioneered a new method to enhance quality via digitalization. This initiative aims to reduce quality-related costs and expedite customer feedback by digitizing quality processes.Cost Reduction and Efficiency Increase Embracing Quality Process Automation In Hitachi's 2024 mid-term plan, prioritizing loss cost reduction and quality automation is essential. In response, the HGAP-SZ Quality Department abandoned traditional software development, which is high in cost, and instead utilized the low-code platform—Microsoft Power Platform—to create customized applications.During new project development, production, and customer feedback stages, the HGAP-SZ Quality Department created four custom applications. Integrated with Power Automate for automated workflows, these apps facilitate automatic notifications and approvals, addressing real business challenges. The quality monthly report, designed in Power BI, offers data visualization, guiding quality staff in swift, well-informed decision-making.Enhancing Quality and Building an Outstanding Corporate Culture To strengthen the construction of a corporate culture that enhances quality through digitalization, HGAP-SZ conducted a series of training sessions for different functional departments. It hosted sharing sessions on improving quality processes through digital software and quality tools and used performance dashboards to track quality indicators, fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility for quality among employees.Versus FY2022, HGAP-SZ has noted impressive advancements in new project development non-compliance item handling, production line defect resolution, and swifter customer feedback. By cutting down on repairs, defect handling wait times, and material waste, a considerable proportion of loss costs have been diminished, substantially boosting customer satisfaction.In the future, HGAP-SZ plans to further create applications like “On-site Audits” and electronic document management. Extensive training and hands-on knowledge sharing will minimize errors and refine automated systems. This continuous improvement drives quality in products and operations via digitalization.

The 2024 Spring China International Pharmaceutical Machinery Exposition (CIPM) was held in Qingdao, China from May 20-22, 2024. The event featured a wide range of advanced pharmaceutical machinery and technology solutions, with the HGAP-SZ booth’s pharmaceutical air solutions drawing particular attention.As the world’s largest producer and exporter of pharmaceutical raw materials, China is gradually transitioning towards the production and export of finished pharmaceutical products, presenting tremendous growth opportunities for China’s pharmaceutical machinery industry.At the expo, HGAP-SZ showcased DS55 dry oil-free screw air compressor, nitrogen generator, energy recovery system, Intelligent Centralized Controllers, and seamless compressed air solutions. These products attracted significant interest from industry professional, and HGAP-SZ booth staff provided expert introduction to the visitors.“HGAP-SZ is committed to providing comprehensive compressed air solutions to create new production capabilities for the pharmaceutical industry,” said Mr. Yangjian, HGAP-SZ sales Deputy General Manager. “Going forward, we will continue to closely align with the needs and focus areas of the pharmaceutical market, bringing clean, safe and reliable compressed air power to drive transformative change in the pharmaceutical industry.”

2024 Sullair China Distributor Conference was successfully held on April 25th, distributors across China gathered to review the past year's achievements and look forward to a new chapter of cooperative development. The theme of the conference was “It’s time to showcase...Capacity, New Value, Growth.”At the beginning of the conference, Mr. Yasuhiro Takeuchi, President & CEO of HIES; Mr. Hideharu Tanaka, Executive Director & COO of HIES; Mr. John Randall, President & CEO of HGAP, delivered opening speeches in succession. They shared insights on the future development trends of the air compressor market, combined with the company's strategy and vision for future development planning, and established common strategic goals with the distributors.Following that, Mr. Yoshihiko Tachibana, the new General Manager of HGAP-SZ delivered speech. He shared his years of experience in sales and service related to compressors and provided strategic guidance based on the company and market situation. He encouraged everyone to continue to work together in the new fiscal year and to meet the challenges of the market together.In the subsequent sessions, leaders from various departments took turns presenting on topics such as sales performance review and outlook, operational review and continuous improvement, and quality, legal, finance, channel management, engineering, products, and services. They showed how to provide new value to customers and achieve the company's growth objectives from their respective business perspectives.During the award ceremony at the conference, HGAP-SZ presented awards to outstanding distributors, thanking them for their efforts and contributions over the past year.In the following agenda, the leadership team and distributors engaged in in-depth discussions on sales, service, products, technology, and other topics. They established closer connections and laid a more solid foundation for the future development.

On April 24th, Charlie Takeuchi, HIES President and CEO, visited Hitachi Global Air Power–Suzhou (HGAP-SZ) and Hitachi Global Air Power – Changshu (HGAP-CS) and delivered his town hall meetings to employees in these two HIES group companies in China for the first time due to the traveling restrictions caused by COVID in the past few years.During the precious time that Charlie spent with the employees, he first shared the company’s purpose, goal, business models, and initiatives related to key strategies including recurring, green and digital from the HIES corporate standpoint.In Charlie’s speech, he mentioned that HIES, as a global company, promised to lead a sustainable future through our green products and innovations. In the new fiscal year, our focus will be on digital, green, innovation, and contributing to a circular economy for sustainable growth. HIES will continuously strive to improve environmental safety, carbon efficiency, our workplace culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), prioritize employee health, safety, and career development to build a positive work environment and corporate culture.When discussing culture transformation, Charlie emphasized Safety First was always the No.1 thing as a company. In addition, he introduced Chinese employees to exciting projects that are either in process or planning relating to topics including sustainability, internal communication, DEI, global talent development, and Working Together. All these efforts showed the company’s desire to break down barriers in internal communication, strengthen networks between people having different backgrounds and experiences, and enhance people’s engagement globally, which impressed employees a lot.The Chinese employees also actively responded to Charlie - especially in the Q&A sessions. Employees highly valued the great opportunity to ask their questions to Charlie directly. Charlie’s insightful answers brought smiles to their faces.After the town hall meetings, Charlie also did safety walks with the local management teams in the manufacturing sites respectively. Charlie recognized the efforts made and improvements achieved by HGAP-SZ and HGAP-CS in ensuring employees’ safety in their daily work.In July, Charlie plans to visit the remaining HIES companies in China, which he couldn’t make in this trip, to have more face-to-face communication with other HIES global employees.

Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems (HIES) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Yoshihiko Tachibana as the new General Manager of Hitachi Global Air Power Suzhou Co., Ltd. (HGAP-SZ), effective from April 1st, 2024. This transition follows the relocation of the current General Manager, Mr. Natsuki Kawabata, who will assume the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) of HGAP in the United States.Mr. Tachibana brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the industry. He joined Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems (HIES) in 2004, where he had been primarily responsible for HIES's international sales of Hitachi-branded air compressors. Prior to joining HIES, Mr. Tachibana served as a sales support engineer for overseas customers, gaining valuable insights into different business cultures and practices.During his career, Mr. Tachibana has had the opportunity to work and lead teams in various oversea countries, including China (Shenzhen), the United Kingdom (London), and Thailand (Bangkok). In China, he played a critical role in transferring the test bench from Japan to Shenzhen; and led the subsequent training for local engineers to grow as the future representatives of the company for China market. In the United Kingdom, Mr. Tachibana oversaw the sales of components by actively visiting and approaching customers across Europe. His footprint covered more than 20 countries during his tenure. Moreover, in Thailand, he led the team and successfully doubled the sales revenues within six years.Mr. Tachibana will soon relocate to Suzhou, China. With his extensive international management experience and excellent track record, Mr. Yoshihiko Tachibana is well positioned to lead HGAP-SZ into the next phase of growth and development in China.

Quality is not only a matter of trust but also a key to success. It occupies a position of utmost importance within Hitachi Group's core values.During November 2023 to January 2024, the HGAP Suzhou factory successfully organized the quality event in line with the HIES Group's quality theme. The event focused on " Gauge Management Improving" and unfolded a comprehensive quality management competition among 12 teams within the factory. The air-end second-line team emerged as the winner, setting an example for the factory staff with orderly gauge management and improved safety precautions, thereby solidifying the defenses for safe production at the factory.In the daily production of the factory, unanticipated damage due to improper measurement tool management occurs from time to time. Unreasonable storage methods and improper or disorderly placement not only increase the waste of management time and costs but also pose potential safety risks. In response, the HGAP Suzhou factory's Quality Month event, centered on gauge management, offered valuable lessons to the factory staff in terms of awareness and action.From the initial disorderly placement of gauges, unclear quantities of measuring tools, and safety hazards, to now having all gauges and measuring tools placed at designated spots, uniformly labeled for clarity, with organized inventory lists for easy management, and significantly reduced unanticipated damage, the quality management situation at the entire HGAP Suzhou factory has been transformed.“By improving our gauge management processes, we not only guarantee safer and more efficient operations within the HGAP Suzhou facility, but also makes our customers trust every HGAP product even more. Let’s carry this spirit beyond Quality Month, making it an integral part of our daily work.” States Colin Chen, the quality manager at HGAP Suzhou.