The Centre quarterly newsletter, March 2026 issue, is now available.
In this issue:
Main event…
The 53rd Challenge towards World Class Manufacturing (WCM) mission was organized by the EU-Japan Centre on 11-15 March 2024. 24 participants, working in various sectors from 10 European States took part in this course. The objective of the Centre’s WCM training is to offer an insight into the Japanese way of developing and implementing manufacturing methods in a very practical way. This five-day training consisted of lectures, workshop Dojos, and factory visits where participants learned how to identify the real causes of current challenges and improve the situation by themselves. This year’s session included 4 visits to Japanese factories operating in the automotive and housing sectors arranged in order to show the participants how the methods are adopted at the real “Gemba” - the Japanese manufacturing site.
The next WCM mission in Japan will be in February 2025, call for application starting soon.
Testimonials from this session training
“Visiting the homeland of Lean/TPS was an eye-opening experience. In Europe, we focus too much on blame and financial motivation, while the Japanese have none of that. “If a worker’s performance is low, it is the manager’s fault” - that's the key takeaway that I will bring back home. I am going back with a real plan of what to introduce in the next 3 months and a long-term strategy in mind. Come to Japan with open eyes and open minds and you will be astonished by the simplicity and efficiency of their ideas in business and life.”
By Mr. Vilius Seskauskas, Development manager, UAB Provectus redivivus
“The mission was both useful and inspiring. Seeing the companies that implement the best manufacturing practices, the tools they use in their everyday work and simple, but brilliant solutions to their manufacturing challenges is really helpful for mapping out the journey of improvement for our company. The lectures can only take you so far - but being able to see the theoretical concepts being implemented in real factories has been eye-opening.”
By Mrs. Neringa Dubauskiene, Innovation Engineer, UAB Kavera
Published: June 2024
The EU-Japan Centre currently produces 5 newsletters :
Joint venture established in 1987 by the European Commission (DG GROW) and the Japanese Government (METI) for promoting all forms of industrial, trade and investment cooperation between the EU and Japan.
