About the Company

FURUKAWA ELECTRIC AUTOPARTS PHILIPPINES (FEAP), INC. is a multinational manufacturing Company that was wholly owned by Furukawa Electric Co. (FEC), Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan. FEC is a well-known manufacturer of steering roll connector (SRC) for car air bag system that has acquired a significant 35% share of the international market.


The Philippines is situated in a strategic location making it conductive to trade. With the constant encouragements from Japan by Toyota Motor Corporation and Tokai Rika Co. Ltd., an internationally known car parts producer, FEC was prompted to establish a subsidiary plant in the Philippines.


In November 1997, Mssrs. Kunihiro Naito and Junichiro Tanaka, both FEC, started carrying out the coordination and documentation on all requisites of the Philippine government so that a subsidiary plant could officially conduct business operation in the country. It was organized with Mr. K. Naito appointed to the post of President and Mr. Hisashi Namikawa as the Factory General Manager.


The establishment of FEAP in the Philippines was finally concluded in January 1998 when it acquired its official registration as an enterprise of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA). This development led to the immediate implementation of its initial mass production in May of the same year in a small factory facility at EPZA-Rosario, Cavite. There were only 48 employees who worked to produce the required introductory production volume of 50,000 pieces of SRC, the main product of the plant.


With hard work and coupled with a great deal of enthusiasm, the company yielded products surpassing the established quality requirements of the Mother company, FEC. Inspired by the positive outcome, the Mother company embarked on a bigger and wider plan of expanding FEAP’s manufacturing capacity. FEC decided to include for the plant’s future operation the manufacture of fuse blocks, waterproof connectors and terminals in addition to its main product. The finished products of FEAP are supplied to TRP (end user: Toyota Motor Phil. Corp.), Tokai Rica, Japan (end user: Toyota Motor Corp.) Rica Auto Parts Co., Ltd. (Taiwan), Honda Car Phil., Inc., Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru), Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Tokai Rica Thailand (end user: Isuzu Motor Car Thailand).


In August 1998, Mr Namikawa’s term of office was cut short because he was deployed in another overseas affiliate for a new assignment. Engr. Kenji Ishitani took over his vacated post.


A year after, Mr. Naito had to vacate his post too as president of FEAP because there were more pressing demands for his expertise at the FEC telecommunications project office.


The events that occurred and the planned expansion in production brought the need for the FEAP Board of Directors to designate a president who would replace Mr. Naito. After much deliberation, they decided to give the post to Mr. Naoji Ando, making him the first officially designated president by Board of Directors of FEAP.


From then on, FEAP undertook significant moves that strengthened the core of the business. It focused on managing the costs, improving the quality of the products and formulating effective work systems to make the company more cost-efficient, customer-centered and competitive in the world market.


Competitiveness requires a viable location for the business. For this reason, FEAP decided to move the factory to Laguna Technopark, Biñan, Laguna in January 2000 with a vision and optimism that this new site will play an important role in the strategic mass production of quality automotive products and foster closer coordination and efficient service with its customers. Today, FEAP stands on 3.2-hectare property in 113 East Main Avenue, Laguna Technopark, Biñan, Laguna.


FEAP aggressively and continuously rendering its best efforts to uplift further its quality standards with the aim to better serve the needs of competitive business climate. As recompense to all the efforts exerted towards the achievement of this goal, it was awarded the certificate for QS 9000/ISO 9001 special quality seal last August 2000 by the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. of New York, USA after successfully passing its rigid audit and assessment procedures. And by the company’s strong adherence for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and reduction of variation and waste in the supply chain, FEAP acquired an accreditation to ISO/TS 16949 by year 2003 and this time, from Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Inc. of Japan.


Another major transition took effect at the start of the fiscal year of 2012, when ownership of FEAP was sold by FEC to Furukawa Automotive System (FAS), Japan, which made FAS now its mother company.


As of the end of February 2017, the manpower has grown to 1,559 employees. Its production volume has considerably increased from 50,000 pcs. of SRC per month when it first started its operation to the current maximum capacity of 900,000 pcs of SRC assembly, Flexible Flat Cable (FFC) assembly and injection molding lines per month. Gearing towards localization of supplied materials as part of company’s cost-effective measures, FFC lamination process was established and started its mass production by mid part of year 2013. Currently, it has a monthly maximum production capacity of 2M pcs. By year 2016, another new product was launched, Battery State Sensor (BSS), and started its mass production on August of the same year with 55,000 pcs. maximum capacity per month. In September 2017, its production capacity expanded with 188,000 pcs. per month.


At present, FEAP is occupying a leading rank among the manufacturing industry of SRC in the world and continuously pursue developing new possibilities in modern technologies that would provide comfortable and safe lives, environmental care and a progressive future.


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