Built to Serve Customers for Life

If you’ve spent any time around Okuma, it won’t be long before you hear the phrase “We Passionately Pursue a Customer for Life.” This phrase is not just a slogan for us; it’s more a way of life. This involves making significant investments in tools, relationships, and support that enhance our ability to help customers adapt, flourish and grow at all stages of their business lifecycle, including challenging times such as COVID-19.

Investing in Customers for Life

Over the course of many decades, Okuma America has purposefully built our business around the “Customer for Life” concept. We have numerous distributor facilities located throughout the Americas, designed to put helpful resources right at your fingertips. Even if you’re not an Okuma customer, it’s likely you’ve been called on by a representative from your local distributor, as a part of their routine of taking care of their territory. This strong network of resources could never be built in short order, and today this deep infrastructure stands ready to support customers in their daily needs.

Substantial Investment in Parts Inventory

Okuma has an exceptionally wide range of machine tools to choose from, each one a highly complex piece of advanced technology. With this extensive variety of machines comes a large number of different parts and components. Because we know availability of parts is a critical issue, Okuma and our distributors make a substantial investment in stocking parts, both locally and globally. At any given time this includes:

• $40 million parts inventory at Okuma America headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina
• $20 million parts inventory at North American distributors
• $200 million parts inventory worldwide

While having substantial inventory on-hand is important, it’s also important to be able to deliver parts and services in a timely fashion, which is why we have developed a sophisticated logistics and support framework designed to deliver global door-to-door emergency parts shipping and call center support all day, every day. Additionally, all parts within our inventory are OEM certified and come with a full one-year warranty.

Maintenance Programs

An investment in an Okuma machine is just that, an investment. Our goal is to help our customers maximize their investment by offering products and services that extend the life of their Okuma machines, which is why we have developed and stock a series of product CARE preventive maintenance kits for our most popular models. Additionally, in partnership with our distributors, we offer free evaluation services for select electrical and mechanical components of our machines to ensure that they are operating at maximum efficiency and performance rates.

Knowledge Resource

For many years we’ve been amassing a large library of informative resources, from how-tos and checklists to podcasts and instructional videos. Recently we’ve packaged these materials into a Machinist’s Handbook, a compilation of practical tools and tips for your shop floor. You can find a starter list of resources here, and a more comprehensive collection of topics in Okuma’s Knowledge Center. These resources can be used in a variety of ways:

• Employee development (especially during slow periods, or downtime during production cycles)
• New employee onboarding
• Troubleshooting processes
• Idea generation for productivity enhancement

Tech Centers: A Manufacturer’s Playground

We have 6 Tech Centers located across the Americas where we provide application resources, collaboration with partners, and connection to educational institutions, research and development. These facilities are equipped with the latest machine tool technology and experienced personnel to provide a place that facilitates innovation. If you haven’t tapped into these resources yet, I encourage reaching out to your local distributor to see how we can serve you.

I don’t think a day goes by that we don’t talk about what we can do for our customers, and often this involves going way above and beyond what’s expected. As part of our core mission, vision and values, Okuma is built to serve customers for life.

About Ira Busman

 Ira Busman is Vice President of Customer Service for Okuma America Corporation, a world-leading builder of CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machine tools, founded in 1898 in Nagoya, Japan. Okuma is the industry’s only single-source provider, with the CNC machine, drive, motors, encoders, and spindle all manufactured by Okuma. The company also designs their own CNC controls to integrate seamlessly with each machine tool’s functionality.

Company: Okuma America Corporation

Website: www.okuma.com

Connect with Ira on LinkedIn

This article appeared first on the Okuma America website.