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にほんブログ村
Hello. I’m President Yasui, running a one-person company mainly focused on inspecting high-pressure gas equipment.
How’s the first half of Golden Week treating you?
As for me, I’m working — we’re halfway through the regular maintenance project that started last year.
I’ve heard that some companies in our industry are off during Golden Week, but I’m truly grateful that my company continues to receive work.
The other day, I received the Spring 2025 issue of LP Gas Plant, the newsletter of the Japan LP Gas Plant Association, our industry group for LPG inspection services.
As I flipped through the pages, I came across an article reporting on the 2024 C-Class Inspector Opinion Exchange Meeting.
It caught my interest, and I read every word.
There were records of active exchanges of ideas on topics like near-miss incidents, heatstroke prevention, and how to pass down knowledge to younger workers. It was very interesting.
Some near-miss examples made me go, “Really? That happens?”
And others had me thinking, “Wait, is that even a near miss?”
Still, the variety of topics discussed showed that it must have been a productive and positive meeting.
One example shared was:
“Someone installed a valve without removing the masking tape, and only noticed during a pressure test for leak-tightness.”
Honestly, that's a pretty common occurrence.
Our work still relies heavily on analog methods, and most errors we encounter stem from human error.
To prevent those errors, we often depend on human-centric solutions like checklists and double checks — again, human-dependent processes.
While not always realistic, one could argue: if we didn’t use tape in the first place, there’d be no forgetting to remove it.
Is tape even necessary? That’s something worth questioning.
From a cost and efficiency standpoint, using tape is still a reasonable choice — but thinking in these ways might spark new ideas.
If we only focus on our own methods, it’s hard to generate fresh ideas.
But by listening to others in these kinds of exchange meetings, we can find inspiration or be encouraged to act on thoughts we’ve had, like:
“Maybe this way would work better.”
And if the response is more positive than expected, it might even lead to new proposals within our own company.
Solving industry-wide problems like labor shortages or lack of skill development is incredibly difficult, but sharing successful case studies can help other companies adopt similar practices and sustain knowledge transfer across the industry.
In the end, with everyone struggling with manpower shortages, if one company fails, the pressure could shift to others and overwhelm them too.
Now may not be the time for competition.
It might be the era where we should say, “So, what should we, as an industry, do together?” and join hands.
It’s truly wonderful that such opportunities for idea exchange exist.
I’m already looking forward to the next issue.
It may be a small world, but let’s keep lifting the inspection industry together!
Today’s quote:
“Let’s value our connections across the industry.”
See you next time!
