According to President Goto, "client-centered management is the fundamental point." After a long 33 years of working in the company's factories, he was appointed as president this spring. While there used to be only one type of product, polyacetal, the company has grown to become an all-round manufacturer that currently has five different resins, including PBT and PPS. It is also active overseas, and already the overseas side exceeds the domestic in both sales and number of employees. There are many urgent issues to tackle, such as the high cost of raw materials and measures to be taken in response to the strong yen, and the question is how the company will resolve these issues, utilizing its technological expertise, which is its strength. In 2012 Polyplastics will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. An enthused Goto states, "We will have to improve our performance by then."

Chemnet: We hear that you worked for a long time in the factories.

Goto: I joined the company in 1974 and spent 33 years at the Fuji plant. That included more than 20 years on-site in production, and about 10 years working at the production technology center inside the factory. It's not far from Mount Fuji, so every day while I worked I enjoyed the mountain views.

C: Your company has changed considerably since then. Please describe the process.

G: At first we extended our business as an engineering plastics manufacturer. When I joined the firm, there was only product, polyacetal, but now this has increased to five resins, with the addition of PBT (polybutylene terephthalate), PPS (polyphenylene sulfide), the LCP liquid crystal polymer, and the COC (cyclic olefin copolymer) that we started two years ago.

Our main product, polyacetal, is produced not only at the Fuji plant, but also in Taiwan and Malaysia, and a factory has been newly completed in Nantong in China, bringing our production scale to around 200,000 tons. Meanwhile, we have established sales bases in southeast Asia and various parts of China as well, and built up a solid sales and service network. A network that pretty much covers the Asian continent is almost complete.

C: It seems that your performance is steadily improving.

G: At our FY 2007 settlement, our sales were 114 billion yen, operating profits 13 billion yen, and net profits 6.6 billion yen, all of them record figures. Our rate of profitability is also comparatively high, being over 10% every year. However, recently the factors of the suddenly stronger yen in the exchange rate, and the high prices of raw materials, are making it harder to maintain our profitability.

Because our company has actively engaged in business overseas, our overseas sales percentage is high, at over 50%. This means that we are badly affected by the strong yen. The dramatic rise in the prices of raw fuel and crude oil lead to a huge increase in costs. However, it is very difficult to reflect these increases in the prices of products, so we expect a drop in profits this term.

C: Are your polyacetal factories in China functioning smoothly?

G: In Nantong in Jiangsu Province, four companies together established a joint company - us, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Co., Korea Engineering Plastics Co., Ltd., and the American Ticona - and we've fully constructed a plant with annual production of 60,000 tons. It started running in October 2005, and operations are running smoothly, with it currently running to almost full capacity. Since our company injected capital to the value of 71%, we receive just over 40,000 tons of the production, and deliver it mostly to on-site local manufacturers and Japan-affiliated manufacturers. Shipments are also going smoothly.

The Chinese market is strategically important, and we want to steadily increase not only our production bases there, but also our sales bases. Last year we opened branches in Guangdong Province, in Guangzhou,and branches in Chongging in Southwest China. Also, in autumn we started a Technical Solutions Center in Shanghai, which is active mainly in providing technical support for customers, such as analysis estimates and material designs.

C: How are the market-developing prospects for the new resin, COC?

G: This is an operation that we acquired jointly with Daicel Chemical Industries, Ltd. two years ago from Ticona, and we have a plant near Dusseldorf in Germany that has annual production of 30,000 tons. Currently it is operating at only about one-third capacity, but the sales are steadily increasing, and we have high hopes for the future. This top-quality resin has high transparency, excellent optical characteristics, and outstanding heat resistance and high fluidity.

This resin has high future potential, so we intend to pour a lot of resources into research and sales, so as to quickly develop it into a profit-making pillar. We have high expectations for its usage in fields such as optical lenses and prisms, and also reflectors for liquid crystal televisions, light guide plates, and packaging materials. In the field of light guide plates, etc., Japan is more advanced than Europe and the US.

C: In regard to future possibilities, the PPS resin also seems to have good potential.

G: That's right. We joined up with Kureha, in a vertical specialization. They concentrate on the polymers, while we focus on compounds. The biggest usage is, as you'd expect, for automobiles. Looking on a global level also, PPS is growing by almost 10% per year. It's a resin with high future potential.

C: So you intend to continue to put efforts into the overseas side of the business?

G: The demand for cars and household appliances is developing overseas, and the axis of growth is overseas. Out of our total number of 1,500 employees, more than half have non-Japanese nationalities, while our overseas sales ratio is also already high.

I believe that, in the future too, along with our overseas growth, our on-site local ratio will become even higher. As a multi-national company, we want to develop the company along with people from around the world, while respecting each country's business culture.

C: As the new president, what are the ongoing issues that concern you?

G: Our company will celebrate the 50th anniversary of our establishment in 2012, so in our next mid-term management plan, which has 2012 as its final year, I want to come up with good figures. Within a few years we aim to increase our sales to 150 billion yen. In order to do that, this year we aim to do our best to achieve 120 billion yen.

As a materials manufacturer, naturally technology is important. In the future as well, we must continue to implement technological innovation in order to be able to contribute by responding to our customers' diverse needs. I want to increase our percentage of value-added goods through our technological strength, and fundamentally change our profit-earning structure to make Polyplastics into a company that can achieve continuous growth.

In terms of issues related to production, one is expanding our production ability to respond to the demand both domestically and overseas. We are currently considering the details in relation to the scale of increasing our facilities, the location, and the timing.

In terms of overseas operations, aiming for further growth in China, southeast Asia, ASEAN, etc., along with strengthening our after-service system, etc. in relation to Japan-affiliated manufacturers, another important issue is cultivating the local markets.

Our company, through the recent change of officials, now has younger management. They will bring a new perspective to corporate ideals and strategy, and I want the company itself to transform into one that is able to easily respond to changes in the environment. We will steadily improve our communication with our staff on-site and maintain our management of the company as an integrated whole.

Rather than becoming a person whom customers praise as "wonderful!" I would prefer each of our employees to become a person described as "trustworthy." We aim to achieve customer satisfaction by providing truly thorough service. This reflects our fundamental company philosophy of "client-centered management."