I just completed my very first trip to Japan recently. After having travelled all throughout Asia over my career, Japan always eluded me until now. My business partner and I travelled there to meet with our newest client, who had recently opened a new research center focused on solutions for the paper industry.
I've written previously on Japanese culture, which was based on my own research - not experience. Now I have some experience to share. When you are expected to write about the paper industry on a frequent basis, one tends to have an eye for details when experiencing new things, or places. Your whole life becomes material to diagnose and share with your audience.
There are obvious things to bring to everyone's attention about traveling in Japan. Things like right side steering cars driving on the left side of the road. Not a big deal for most, but I would not recommend doing any driving yourself if you are not used to it. Even as a passenger, I found I was always looking at the wrong things as we navigated the busy streets and byways. The public transportation system is so well developed and operated, the need for driving is much less than other first world cultures and societies.
The basic currency bill (paper) is ¥1000. At current exchange rates, that equates to almost $7. I found Japan to be very close to the cost of similar things in the USA. Any denomination of Yen less than ¥1000 was in coinage format.
I did confirm that most of the native Japanese are on the shorter side, at least compared to the Western cultures, but it wasn't as obvious or extreme as I expected. The biggest observation I found in the stature of Japanese culture was there are no obese natives. Every Japanese person I saw seemed fit and healthy - no matter what age. This might explain why they lead the world in longevity.
The culture seemed to prefer pre-packaged food from convenience stores for meals on-the-go rather than "fast food" found on every corner or exit off a highway in the West. I found this type of meal to be quite good, and much healthier than whatever McDonald's has to offer. The only struggle I experienced was finding public trash bins for the cellophane wraps and paper cups and bowls. Where I live, a receptacle is within a few steps anywhere you go. For a society that depends on recycling as much as this nation-island, fewer collection points for recyclable materials makes sense to ensure all waste that feeds the paper-recovery stream are captured for further processing.
Paper is definitely an important part of Japanese culture. You see it everywhere. They have paper lanterns all over the place. Some of the temples, shrines, and historic places still had paper walls, like you see in the movies. Stationary stores are very common around business and tourist districts. Folded paper notes containing prayers and affirmations from shrines and temples dangle from strings or tree branches. Origami is a national hobby with examples everywhere you look.
My travels took me to a few paper mills. We started in Fuji City. Now I know why my sales colleagues from past companies I've worked for that were based in Japan were always the top global sellers...there are so many paper mills concentrated in certain towns. Not as many as there used to be though. Demand for some grades dwindled, forcing closures, as well as environmental regulation of water and air effluents that have made it too expensive to operate in the town. Similar stories are found in every country.
The assets I was lucky enough to visit and observe did not seem too different than the hundreds of machines I've worked on in my own country. All the same components, flow, and inputs. However, I did feel there was a higher degree of automation for most activities. This also made sense since I found the operators and machine leadership to be of advanced age. This is not a terrible situation until one considers what happens in five years?
The biggest observation I saw in paper making operations was a high degree of housekeeping and the cleanliness of the machine surfaces. For an industry so dependent on recycled fibers, they have managed to keep stickies, pitch, and slime under control to an extent that it does not impede OEE (overall equipment effectiveness.) Although the surrounding areas has lush forests, those trees are not for fiber. It's recycling all the way - and they have learned how to manage the downsides of that fiber source.
As operations in the US and EU lean more towards recycled fiber processing, there is a lot to learn from the Japanese.
Even during my visits to the bathroom, I gained a sense of major differences than what I was used to all my life. Nearly every toilet is fitted with a bidet in Japan. The heated seat feature is something I fell in love with. After learning how to use the bidet for cleaning, the thin bath tissue began to make sense. It is mostly for drying wet backsides, not wiping for sanitation purposes. I really do like how they do this. It takes getting used to, but the need for ultra soft or ultra strong solutions in bath tissue is not there. No plugged toilets. And there were no paper towels for drying of hands after washing...a few minutes of wet hands does not seem to bother anyone. Imagine all the waste this eliminates all by itself!
Paper making is a global industry, and different regions of the world have problems that may be more extreme than others. That alone makes certain regions better at solving problems we all face to some degree. If we are to make our industry the safest, most efficient, and highest quality we can, it will require a global village to do it.
Steve Sena (stevesena@me.com) is a Cincinnati native. He obtained degrees in Paper Science & Engineering from Miami University in Oxford, OH and an MBA concentrating in Economics from Xavier University. He's worked for a broad array of leading producers, suppliers, and converters of pulp and paper grades.
