Piano Factory Visits – Japan (Yamaha & Kawai)

The Australasian Piano Tuners and Technicians Guild organised a one-week visit to Japan, with the primary purpose of visiting the Yamaha and Kawai piano factories in Hamamatsu.
As is common in factory environments, photography was not permitted. However, we all absorbed as much as possible during the visit. What stood out was the sheer scale of the factories — we only had time to visit several buildings at each site.
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We visited the Yamaha factory first. Their foyer displayed a number of unique Yamaha instruments, and we were divided into small groups for the tour. Yamaha were quite strict about what we could and couldn’t see, but what was particularly impressive was their use of CNC machinery and robotic carts transporting pianos around the factory. These carts played a short tune when moving, alerting people to get out of the way.

The Kawai factory appeared to have somewhat older equipment but was much more relaxed in terms of access. If we saw something of interest, we were generally free to take a closer look. On several occasions, I stood right next to workers on the assembly line to observe exactly what they were doing.

Having previously visited the Steinway & Sons factory in New York and the Mason & Hamlin factory in Massachusetts, it is always interesting to compare the different approaches taken by piano manufacturers.