Hiroyuki Suzuki, TES Committee Chair and General Manager

The Days for Engineers carries on the tradition of the original Mokuyo-kai and Nanoka-kai gatherings. We want to create a 'ba'—a place—where people can gather at the intersection of technologies and talk with one another.

We do not want it to be a one-off; we want it to lead to what comes next. That is why the planning team has insisted on regularly offering the kind of place where people run into one another by chance and come away connected.

This is not a showcase of the latest trends. We want people to see the technology, touch it, and feel it close at hand, so that conversations can grow out of that. The team shaped the entire program around that idea. The research presentation session is treated as a proving ground for young engineers, and we always get plenty of entries. This time the top prize went to an engineer who had also contributed to the exhibits. You can always feel the enthusiasm and the drive to keep improving.

We also run a lecture series. With all the talk these days about work-style reform, we hope it gives people insights that prompt them to rethink how they approach their work and their relationships, and ultimately to change how they act.

We planned the event so that the setup crew, the booth staff, the presenters, and the visitors could each feel the day was theirs. We wanted people to see as much as possible, and there was even talk of adding more venues. But because the goal was to connect people, we also felt it was important to keep the event compact. The team therefore kept it to a scale that visitors could cover thoroughly in a single day while still having time to talk.

Yoshiharu Hirata, Assistant Manager at the TES Higashi-Fuji Branch

We launched the program with the aim of creating a more connected technical center in the future and chose energy management as the first theme. Energy management is relevant to everyone, and energy itself is invisible. What is optimal depends on which of the many possible objective functions are used, so we share information on the challenges involved and how to address them.

Masahiro Inoue, Assistant Manager

When we held the event at Higashi-Fuji, technical themes that had previously been pursued separately came together, opening up possibilities for future joint studies and knowledge-sharing. We found opportunities to say, "If we are working on the same thing, let’s do it together." In other cases, we realized that having access to certain information would save us from spending money on work we did not need to do. That kind of collaboration became a major strength for us.

Takahiko Nakamura, Group Leader, Daihatsu Motor

This area brings together exhibits on resin-molding technologies. Daihatsu is showcasing paint-free technology using white resin parts that require no coating. Toyota is pursuing a similar approach with paint-free piano-black resin parts. As both companies work to eliminate painting, each faces different challenges. Because Daihatsu has developed multi-color molding machines, switching between material colors is not an issue for us. Toyota, meanwhile, does not have the same type of multi-color molding machines, but it is ahead of us in materials and mold technologies.

The event gave us a valuable opportunity to connect, share our respective strengths, and exchange technical expertise. Beyond the technical exchange itself, the staff working at the resin-molding booths also got to know one another. I felt that the event helped them broaden their personal networks as well.

Masahiro Fujimoto, Group Manager, Sports Promotion Div

A new gymnasium will be completed at the Toyota Sports Center next year. Rather than simply building a gym, we are looking to integrate technology and use it to help our athletes improve. What we have here is one example of that technology. Right now, we are developing motion analysis for baseball, softball, sprinting, and volleyball, and we want to extend it to rugby, basketball, and soccer as well. We are building a body of data on Toyota athletes.

Of course, we want to use it to improve their performance, but the data has already led to collaborations. For example, we have been asked to use our human-motion data to help the AI basketball robot CUE dribble and get past defenders.

Retired athletes often move into administrative departments, but we want them to enter the field of motion analysis and use it as a springboard to a second career in vehicle engineering and development. The traffic can run the other way, too. Employees involved in vehicle measurement, even if they are not athletes, are also welcome to join motion analysis if they want a better understanding of how the human body moves and to apply what they learn to vehicle development.

We call this a "career multi-pathway." We launched the Campas concept to create such pathways through sports measurement. Here at the event, we invite technical staff, skilled workers, and administrative staff alike to join us. Some people have already said they would like to transfer to the team and try the work for themselves.

Executive Vice President Hiroki Nakajima

TES replaces its committee members every single year, including the chair. That makes each year an ichigo ichie - a once-in-a-lifetime encounter. For one year, the members who have come together do what only that particular group can do. For The Days for Engineers in particular, the team works hard every year, changing the format and content to draw out as much as possible of Toyota engineers’ drive to keep looking ahead.

Stay with this long enough, and you start to make out what people call the "Toyota spirit." I cannot say that it has fully come into focus, but I have come to sense our engineers’ desire to use their own technologies to make the world a better place.

Our larger aim goes beyond this one day: we want everyone to carry what they gain here into their everyday work. We are still only partway there. All the same, we put in the work every year because we believe this one day helps develop people who can keep giving their best in the years ahead.

President Kenta Kon

Encountering the ambition and passion of these younger members made me think hard about how we should support them, and it gave me courage. I only had a short time to look around, but I was deeply moved.

A lot of the booth presentations focused on making connections. In addition to pursuing each technology in depth, people are linking up with others and sharing their work so that their strengths can scale further. That way, the individual grows, and so does Toyota’s strength as a whole. Seeing everyone working with that in mind was reassuring.

Executive Vice President Hiroki Nakajima

For his first calligraphy of the year, Chairman Toyoda wrote the character "ba," meaning "place." When we were younger, we too devoted ourselves to engineering. Now that I am in this position, when I ask what we should be doing, I keep coming back to the same answer: creating a "ba" where young engineers can work and pursue development projects with real energy.

The trouble is that information is everywhere now. Plenty of it reaches you even if you never go out and look for it. I want people to break out of that environment on their own and start asking, "I want to try something new. Where are the people I can do that with?"

Everyone wearing the same work uniform is one of us, right? Yet once people belong to different departments or in-house companies, it becomes difficult for them to communicate. Many people tell me that is the problem. That makes me want to say, "Get out there and take action!" The view that opens up when you act on your own initiative is completely different from anything someone else can teach you.

People often say the problem is communication. Well, we will make that "ba." But I want people to keep acting on their own initiative and never lose sight of that.