KANEKO OPTICAL: its work and people

One day he happened to become interested in eyeglasses. Ultimately he chose that field as his life work. He left the company where he'd been working and set his sights on becoming an eyeglass craftsman, moving his family to Sabae City in Fukui. Masaki Awata is today the plant manager of BACKSTAGE, Kaneko Optical's in-house factory. He is the key craftsman who has supported the factory, which forms the backbone of Kaneko Optical's monozukuri culture, since its launch. "It sounds great if I say I was able to achieve my dream, but when I was about to take that step of becoming a craftsman, I felt like I was hurling myself into raging river. And when I finally jumped in, it was to a world in which everything exceeded my imagination."

His previous job was with a mechanical design firm in Aichi Prefecture, mainly working on designing fixtures for manufacturing and machining auto parts. As he sat all day in front of a computer monitor working, his eyes grew fatigued wearing contact lenses, so he began to benefit from some eyeglasses he had not used much before. He felt a deeper fascination with eyeglasses, and was drawn to them as fashion accessories. He wondered if there might be a way to work in the eyeglass field. While continuing at his day job, Awata took a correspondence course from an optician vocational school, starting with studies of the eye and vision. In 2002, at age 26, he quit his job in the design firm and joined Kaneko Optical. His first assignment was to a shop which Kaneko Optical had just opened in the city of Nagoya. His first job was selling to the store customers. 
"This is what I myself wanted. I had regretted in my old job that I worked on design without knowing the factory floor. So this time I wanted to experience for myself the direct interaction with customers before I went to work on the manufacturing side." However, Awata immediately ran into a brick wall at the store. 

Kaneko Optical invested the same weight and passion in its stores as in the factory. The store was the place to meet face to face with users and to provide a space where customers could experience the atmosphere and world view embodied there. It wasn't a matter of merely selling and that was it. Awata, with his engineering background, had to struggle from the start. "I really suffered over my way of speaking. My boss was constantly telling me, 'your voice is a monotone, no emotion comes across, and you give people a cold impression.' Any number of times I used to record my voice on my mobile phone saying, 'Welcome' and 'Thank You' on the way home from work, then check how it sounded. That was how I got started, so not surprisingly I was the last one among the whole store staff to sell my first pair of glasses. Many were better at selling, so I thought I would focus on communicating my individuality and the appeal of the brand to try to grow the store's fan base. I often spent more time face to face with customers than any other staff member."

Through steady effort and accumulated experience, Awata was finally promoted to store manager. As he approached age 30, he faced a transition. In 2006, he was contacted to become a member of the workshop Kaneko Optical had set up to take on the challenge of doing their own artisanal manufacturing. In his conversations with Awata, President Kaneko had sensed Awata's interest in monozukuri, and his desire to make Kaneko Optical products with his own hands, and it had been his long-awaited wish to summon Awata to join the workshop. Awata's vision when he joined the company was that he would spend at least 3 years on the sales floor gathering experience, then become an eyeglass maker at around age 30. This was becoming reality.

Awata moved with his wife and children to Sabae in 2007 and embarked on his life as an eyeglass craftsman. At the manufacturing site, where most of the work was done by hand, building on the foundation of Sabae's traditional techniques, the average age was a young 30 years old. Since the workshop had just been built, efficient divisions of labor, work flows, and other operational systems had still not been established, so at first everyone got a thorough exposure to all skills, from cutting, to polishing, to assembly. They were filled with the spirit and energy embodied by the phrase, "we're making this together." "It was a factory overflowing with the love of eyeglasses and the passion of the group of craftsmen. I was also learning that the further one pursues traditional eyeglass making by hand, the deeper the field becomes. I quickly felt that I'd entered a crazy world. 15 years have now passed since I became a maker, and I still feel that way."

Now Awata is in charge of the factory floor, and past the stage of having to focus exclusively on making product. As he keeps improving his techniques, he's in the position of training the younger generation, who are like he was back then. "Most of the work at BACKSTAGE is done by hand, and it's very difficult to put into words and communicate the hand-made sensibility. Also, every maker is different and should be taught in a way that matches their type. Some people may not handle machines well, but are far more agile than others, while another person may have clumsy fingers but be fantastic at operating machines or making work calculations. I want to make appropriate work assignments in a way that builds everyone's skills. But I have to say, since I took on this position, I've had a lot of sleepless nights (laughs)."
Back when he was just starting out as a craftsman, among his ambitious co-workers there were people who had already been independent and started their own companies or brands. But Awata has not moved from that location, and continues to be "Awata of Kaneko Optical." 

"When I'm making eyeglasses, I'm always picturing a user. I mean the faces of customers I met when I worked in the store, or the faces of customers who make the effort to come to our stores around the country. I can imagine what kind of glasses I could make that would please them, or what I could do to extend their use of our glasses, so I never lose my motivation as an artisan." 
Besides Awata, there is no other craftsman at Kaneko Optical who also has store sales experience up to the point of being store manager. Awata's rare position is exactly why he cannot be limited to the role of craftsman, and makes him indispensable to Kaneko Optical.


PROFILE

Masaki Awata

Born in Seto City, Aichi Prefecture. After graduating from Aichi Institute of Technology in Toyota City, joined a local mechanical design firm. After four and half years employment there, moved to Kaneko Optical in 2004. Promoted from sales staff to store manager at the "COMPLEX + Nagoya Store" (the current Kaneko Optical Nagoya store), where he gained experience. In 2007, moves to the BACKSTAGE manufacturing department which forms the company's in-house manufacturing site in Sabae. Refines his technique as an eyeglass frame craftsman. Currently factory manager and guide to younger workers.