The New Medium-Term Management Plan
The AIDA Group has launched a new medium-term management plan (a three-year plan for FY2011-FY2013), with FY2011 being the first year. The slogan of this new medium-term management plan is "As a forming system builder we will strike a balance between 'innovation' and 'continued sustainable growth as a global corporation,' and we will expand as a corporate Group that is trusted by society" and our long-term goal is to become a global leader in the forming system field by focusing on the essential initiatives of 1) Creating new customers and 2) Increasing the value-added content of our products.
1. Creating Customers
1) Focusing on Growing Markets
Newly-developing countries such as China, India, other Asian nations and Brazil continue to see strong economic growth, and they are supplanting advanced nations in the role of propelling global economic growth. Not only are exports increasing in these newly-developing countries, their consumption of automobiles and consumer electronics is also on the rise, and there is increasing demand for capital equipment investments. Additionally, with rising labor costs and a sharp increase in production quantities, the requirements for higher productivity and stable product quality are driving increasing equipment demand for automated production lines and systems.
Together with the accelerating shift of production to these newly developing countries by major customers in the automotive industry, there is also an increasing production demand for parts formed from new lighter-weight materials and parts for use in environmentally friendly products (such as HEV and EV products).
The AIDA Group is focusing it efforts in these growing markets by strengthening its application engineering and marketing channels and by strengthening its automotive-related and high-speed press-related sales capabilities.
2) Upgrading and Expanding Innovative Products
As a specialized manufacturer in the forming system field, the AIDA Group has led the industry in the development of technologies and products for optimal forming system products to meet the varied requirements of our extensive customer base in the global market. Not only do our customers have a high regard for AIDA-developed products, in this era of increasingly sophisticated and complex customer requirements they also have many high expectations regarding future innovative products. The AIDA Group is focusing all its energies on upgrading and expanding the following new innovative products.
- Creating entire series of all classes of servo presses.
- Bolster our lineup of conveyance systems that are used together with servo presses.
- Enhance automation products to meet the requirements of each region.
- Expand and bolster our forming methodology and die business.
2. Increasing Value-Added Content
1) Focusing on Strong Products (High Market Share and High Profitability) and High-Income Operations
As a specialized manufacturer, the AIDA Group has differentiated its products from those of other manufacturers and has been delivering products that receive high marks in the market. We are also focusing on strong products and high-profitability operations in order to link this to even better customer satisfaction and to the development of next-generation products.
- Increase our share of the general-purpose press market.
- Strengthen our application engineering capabilities related to high-speed precision presses.
- Bolster our Service operations.
2) Improved Productivity = Improved Inventory Asset Turnover Ratios and Higher Overseas Production Ratios
In the previous medium-term management plan we worked to enhance our facilities by building new factories, expanding existing factories, and upgrading our large machining equipment in order to improve productivity and shorten delivery. With the rise of newly-developing countries and a marked increase in the number of customers shifting their production overseas, as part of its plan to increase its overseas production ratio, the AIDA Group is focusing its efforts on improving the productivity of its global manufacturing facilities. Orders for overseas deliveries already greatly exceed orders for deliveries in Japan, and with the start of operation at our new China factory in summer 2011 and the capital equipment investments in Europe--including the leveraging of suppliers--we are aiming to improve our inventory asset turnover ratios and increase our overseas production ratio.
3. Target Metrics
Along with the above-mentioned high-priority measures contained in the new medium-term management plan, we have also set the following medium-term target metrics. Our goals are to achieve net sales of ¥65 billion or higher and stable operating margins in the 8% range, and to focus even more efforts on improving our corporate valuation and stock price.