Our Mission from established day：
“You mustn’t let an factory grow too big. As long as you run it solidly, even on a small scale, it won’t go under.
In Taisho 6, my great-grandfather, Shinjiro Nakagawa, started a small factory called Nakagawa Precision Machinery Works in Katamachi, Kita Ward, Osaka City—now part of Miyakojima Ward, Osaka City—located on the banks of Osaka Castle. Later, as the country plunged into war, the factory began manufacturing military supplies for the Army Ordnance Depot. While struggling to find suitable machining equipment, the company developed its own thread-cutting device—the Nakagawa-style British-American Helical Threading Machine—for which it obtained a patent and received an award from the City of Osaka for outstanding development of machine tools. Subsequently, the Pacific War began, and all three of my grandfather’s brothers who were working there were mobilized for the war.
After the war ended, the area around us had been reduced to a scorched wasteland by the Great Osaka Air Raid, and since he had been sent to a fierce battle zone, we were on the verge of giving up—but then, out of the blue, only my grandfather—the most mischievous and rowdy of them all—returned alive. That man was Kusuo Nakagawa, the first president of Nakagawa Precision Machinery Works Co., Ltd.
For a short while, he was at a loss amidst the scorched wasteland all around him. But when he asked himself what he could do, driven by the passionate conviction that “Postwar reconstruction in our country depends on manufacturing!!” and “If we don’t support the foundation of manufacturing, who will?”, he raised funds, built a shack, purchased a used belt-driven lathe, and set sail once again in April of Showa 21 as Nakagawa Manufacturing.
Back then, the electricity supply was unreliable, making it difficult to get work done, so I’m told he preferred to run the machines late at night or early in the morning when others weren’t using electricity. It’s been ten years since my grandfather passed away, but whenever my father and I are struggling to make a decision, we often ask ourselves, “What would Grandpa do?” and picture his face—a man who was strict yet showed glimpses of kindness—as we make our choice.
Later, in December of Showa 50, we incorporated the company and changed our name to Nakagawa Iron Works Co., Ltd., which remains our name to this day. Even after my father, Isao Nakagawa, assumed the position of Representative Director in Heisei 1, we continued to work with the mindset of supporting the foundation of “NIPPON, a Nation of Manufacturing.” As a natural extension of this, we arrived at the principle of providing products to our customers with sincerity. Having experienced the so-called Heisei recession—a period unlike anything we had seen before—we realized that manufacturing alone was not enough. We shifted our focus toward earning customer satisfaction by infusing sincerity into the very products we manufacture. The times have changed, and simply supplying products is no longer enough.
We will soon celebrate our 100th anniversary. I am the fourth-generation president, and since the company’s founding, our core principles have remained the same: supporting the foundation of Japan’s manufacturing industry and approaching our work with sincerity through human interaction. The legacy of our ancestors always serves as the guiding principle in the hearts of our management team.
Our company—and our family—has a saying that has been passed down through the generations:
Taking these words to heart, we—all employees—will continue to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the mission of improving our technical capabilities, focusing exclusively on precision machining. We do this to ensure the continued development of Nakagawa Ironworks, to build the technologies that underpin Japan’s manufacturing sector, and to serve as a cornerstone of Japan as a nation built on manufacturing.
[December 2008, Hiroshi Nakagawa]
The impetus for documenting the founding philosophy came from the realization that, as we approach our 100th anniversary in 2017, it was necessary to reaffirm the founder’s vision. After my grandparents passed away, while sorting through their belongings, I came across photographs of our ancestors dating from the late Taisho era to the early Showa era. I felt that their appearance at this time was a sign that our ancestors were asking to be recognized, which led to the compilation of the founding philosophy and the establishment of the
Since our company’s founding, our guiding philosophy in the manufacturing industry has been to operate within our means. We believe that even when taking on work that other companies might shy away from, we can continue to enhance customer satisfaction through sincere and meticulous craftsmanship, thereby ensuring a smooth transition from our generation to the next. Building on this founding philosophy, we have also established our current management philosophy with members selected from among our employees. We recite this philosophy in unison as a company during our morning meetings every day, and it serves as the standard by which we make decisions regarding our business, management, and work.
