Mitsui Seiki remains operational amid COVID-19 guidelines

Mitsui Seiki Chairman Scott Walker has relayed all the actions that the company has been taking for the health and welfare of its customers, partners, and employees since the outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“The analogy I’ve been using during this emergency is that of a ‘gold line’ in scuba diving,” Walker says. “During dangerous cave diving, holding the gold line gets the diver in and out of the cave safely. We all need to hang on right now, help those who may have veered off from the line, and get us all back to the ‘open waters’ of recovery. Frequent communications with our customers, our staff, and our partners is always important, and vitally important right now.”

Safety first
At Mitsui Seiki’s Franklin Lakes, New Jersey offices and at its headquarters factory just outside of Tokyo, Japan, all are following the protective recommendations suggested or ordered by international, national, and local health and governmental authorities. The New Jersey facility is staffed by essential personnel and is open from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm Eastern U.S. time each day and sometimes earlier and later if necessary, to accommodate factory communications and customers in the other time zones. There are also several staff members working from multiple remote, home offices.

Most of Mitsui Seiki’s daily interaction with customers is via phone or online video calls. That open access applies to everyone at the company – from its receptionist to its chairman. The company has canceled sales-related travel for the near future until the situation resolves for everyone’s safety. Machine tool support, installations, and other technical site visits to customer locations, however, continue. If the service issue can be resolved remotely via your staff and ours, technicians will attempt that mode first. If a site visit is required, such as the case of an install, everyone must follow the hygiene and social distancing rules strictly.

Orders in process, new orders, and shipping
For those of customers who have purchased equipment that’s currently being built, construction continues in the factory and the subsequent run-offs are still on schedule. The company is in frequent contact with its key vendors and suppliers to ensure that schedules will be maintained, even for those machines currently on backorder, and orders being placed now. Normally, Mitsui Seiki invites customers to its factory to observe the run-offs first-hand to ensure the machine meets all specifications. However, in light of the current international travel restrictions, the company is providing test cut videos for review and feedback, plus it has hired objective, third-party verifiers to provide results documentation.

Although shipments from Japan to the U.S. have more than tripled in cost, the company is honoring the price as quoted to the customer’s FOB location. All the packing materials, as is the usual protocol, are scrutinized and treated carefully for any contamination. Mitsui Seiki is also arranging to warehouse the crate for 14 days once it arrives in the U.S. before delivery to the customer’s site if desired or if required by state governing authorities.

Strong outlook, new technology development
“The technical expertise required to recommend, specify, engineer, and support such precision technology as a Mitsui Seiki machine tool is intense,” Walker says. “We are all working diligently here to retain our experienced, valuable staff to continue to provide customers with the smartest and most professional team in the industry. The company is strong financially to weather this current health and economic storm. Further, since the company was founded 90 years ago, Mitsui Seiki has embraced a tradition to use these downturns productively.”

The company now is investing even more into R & D, looking several years down the road at the industry and anticipating the types of equipment and services that will be required for its customers in the next decades. During this process, the company invites the most intelligent, brilliant minds from all facets of a machining system to join in this view beyond the horizon. Its design engineers are starting to model these new configurations already.

“Right now, no one is sure how long we will be in these uncharted waters,” Walker continues. “I am confident, though, that with our company’s perseverance and grit, along with sound financial management and a conscious recruitment of our next generation of sales engineers, applications engineers, and service personnel, this company will be serving customers for the next 90 years.”

Mitsui Seiki