Fiscal 2020 Message to New Employees from President Miyuki Ishihara

I would like to congratulate all of you for joining the company, and on behalf of the UACJ Group, I am delighted to welcome each of you to our organization.

Unfortunately, we were unable to celebrate this memorable day in the same venue. I hope you understand that due to the present circumstances, management made this decision in consideration of your health and safety.

Nevertheless, you initial journey as working adults has just begun in the aluminum industry. Demand for aluminum cans and auto parts is rising steeply as the world grapples with the problems of global warming and ocean plastic pollution. Consequently, the industry is expected to continue growing in the years to come.

On the other hand, the UACJ Group’s operating environment has been dramatically changing due the deceleration of China’s economy, its trade friction with the United States, and, of course, the coronavirus pandemic confronting the world today. When an environment undergoes such major changes, in the animal kingdom or business world, alike, it is not the strongest that survive, but, rather, those that respond to the changes and flexibly adapt.

With that in mind, in September 2019, we launched a structural reform plan for streamlining the UACJ Group and improving its resilience so it can withstand the impact of the changes in the operating environment. Since then, like the players of a baseball team, each manager and employee has been playing an individual role in implementing the structural reforms and pushing ahead with the plan. Furthermore, to mark the progress of the structural reforms, we formulated a new corporate philosophy in February of this year. The UACJ Group has a history of over 100 years if you look back to its founding companies, and our predecessors placed importance on making those companies vital for society. To initiate a new history based on that principle, we created new statements of our mission, vision, and values, with the active participation of young and mid-career employees and managers.

The new corporate philosophy reflects our desire to help make the world more sustainable and prosperous through technological capabilities, our conviction that aluminum materials can help create such a world, and the value we place on diversity. In the hope of realizing this philosophy, we have also created the UACJ Way as a set of shared principles of conduct for all members of the Group to follow, just like a compass is used to guide a ship on its voyage.

I hope that all of you entering the company today will thrive and succeed in each workplace where you are assigned from now, and contribute significantly to the company’s competitiveness with your youthful energy and fresh ideas while always keeping the UACJ Way in mind.

Our mission

Contribute to society by using raw materials to manufacture products that enhance prosperity and sustainability.

Our vision

Aluminum is our passion. It inspires our work in building a better world and a healthier environment.

Our values

Respect and understand your associates, embrace honesty and foresight, and be curious and challenging.

As you carry out your work duties, whenever you are struggling to make a decision or when you start something new, I want you to reflect on the three values of the UACJ Way before taking action.

The first value of the UACJ Way is to respect and understand your associates. The UACJ Group is now a global enterprise with more than ten thousand employees. When all of our diverse members work together, we can achieve amazing results. For that to happen, however, we must try to communicate openly with each other while mutually recognizing that each of us thinks and values things a little differently.

All of you, too, are a diverse group of people, even though you are around the same age. Your backgrounds differ in various respects, such as the places where you grew up, the schools you attended, and the subjects you studied. When you start working here, you will interact with a wide range of people in and outside the company. Before then, however, all of you will go through the same training program. During that time, I want each of you to openly express your thoughts, opinions, and values in discussions with each other, and be accepting of different viewpoints and ideas. In that process, you will become members of one big team.

The second value of the UACJ Way is to embrace honesty and foresight. The UACJ Group has earned the trust of customers by manufacturing products in an honest manner. That was possible because our predecessors were very sincere about meeting customers’ expectations for quality, delivery times, and costs. All company divisions, whether R&D, manufacturing, or sales, worked closely with each other to accomplish that. Honestly responding to the expectations of those customers and, indeed, all stakeholders, is a deeply engrained commitment at UACJ, so I want all of you to embrace this value going forward.

To manufacture products in an honest manner, we believe it is essential to take actions based on five basic principles: understand how our factories operate, know our products inside and out, recognize how everything actually works, act rationally, and make decisions based on established rules. The first two things I would like our newly hired employees to focus on are learning about our factories and our customers. Unless you really understand both of these components, you will not be able to grasp the essence of the entire process and come up with solutions to real problems.

It is not enough, however, to take actions based on the current situation—we must also anticipate what lies ahead with foresight. Specifically, we need to provide solutions for customers before our rivals to raise our presence in the market. To develop foresight, I ask all of you, as new employees, to broaden your outlook by regularly reading newspapers and following the news, reading various books outside your areas of specialty, and interacting with people who have different occupations.

Finally, the third value of the UACJ Way is to be curious and challenging. Like my point about foresight, to fully understand the current situation, employees will need more than their individual common sense. As the world undergoes dramatic changes, we should always be curious about things and take on challenges as we work to provide products and services that society really needs. Therefore, I want you to take advantage of your young and fresh perspectives in each workplace where you have been assigned. If you believe something can be improved or more can be accomplished, do not hesitate to discuss it with your supervisor and experienced colleagues. It is fine to start small, so please begin by making improvements in your own work environment.

Next, I would like to talk about safety and compliance, which are at the heart of the UACJ Way.

Ensuring safety and compliance are obvious principles of conduct for a manufacturer. Perhaps I should have begun my address today with this topic, but I saved it for last because I want all of you to keep it in mind.

In Germany, the greeting, glückauf, was originally used by miners to express their desire to return safely from the mine. Similarly, members of Japan’s manufacturing industry often greet each other with the phrase, go-anzen ni, which literally means “stay safe.” At UACJ, too, employees greet each other this word every day as a way of maintaining a shared awareness of safety. I would like all of you, as well, to wholeheartedly greet your co-workers this way in your respective workplaces, as it reflects UACJ’s long-standing tradition of placing priority on safety in everything we do while taking responsibility for one’s own safety.

Meanwhile, ensuring compliance is a minimum requirement of any organization operating in society. Accordingly, the company makes sure to comply with laws concerning health and safety, the environment, and product quality. We also follow various rules, including our own internal regulations as well as the requirements of our customers. As new employees, all of you should begin learning those rules and make sure to follow them in the future.

From today, I would like each new employee to participate in the UACJ Group as a team player and strive to make the most of your individual abilities in your respective workplaces. Aluminum is our passion. It inspires our work in building a better world and a healthier environment. That is the vision of the UACJ Group, and I want everyone to work together towards realizing it.

I have made a number of requests today, but I would like to conclude by asking you to take good care of your health and pay close attention to safety while working at the company in the years ahead. While I say this to our new employees every year, you should always remember that giving top priority to safety and living a healthy life are sound principles for all members of society. I wish you great success in your future careers as members of the company and as working adults. Good luck to all of you and stay safe.