Katayama American Company, Inc.

6901 Midland Industrial Drive

Shelbyville, KY 40065
Phone: (502) 633-7280
Fax: (502) 633-2537

A Message to the KACI Family

I wanted to reach out to each of you as we navigate through these difficult times and give you a clear message;
You are important to KACI! We have over 400 employees at KACI – and when we include our families, we
number well over 1000 people. It is my sincerest wish you all remain healthy during this trial! KACI Culture is the
backbone of our Company and it is KACI Culture that underpins our actions going forward – Safety,
Professionalism, Teamwork, Communication and Open Door Policy.

It is said what we do in times of difficulty truly reveals who we are. KACI has taken several decisions and actions
intended to protect our employees while strengthening our company so that when we finally return to work, we
will be stronger than before. I wanted to bring you up to speed on what has occurred already and what we are
doing for the future. Our last regular shipping day for most of our Customers was Friday, March 20th –
seemingly a lifetime ago. Since that time, we have:

▪ Set up an Official Line of Communication – the KACI Hotline (502-844-2404). We update this at least
weekly, and more often as we adapt our plans based upon latest Customer Information
▪ Created a back-up line of communication – the Paycom Push Text system. This supports, but doesn’t
replace, the Hotline
▪ Assembled Cross Functional Teams to do “Deep Dives” on Quality Issues to get to the Root Cause of the
problems
▪ Conducted training in Root Cause Problem Analysis, Standard Work, Control Plan Walks (matching
Control Plans to Process Instructions to Set-up Sheets, to Standard Work)
▪ Kaizen Events – especially in TR-8 Sash, yielding Tool Change/Set-up improvements as well as more
efficient production – to reduce the amount of OT required in this area.
▪ 5S Training
▪ Leadership Training for Supervisors and Team Leaders
▪ Dedicated Preventive Maintenance activities
▪ Concentrated Quality System Improvement Plans – with cross-functional teams dedicated to both SIA
and Honda. We also interface with our Brothers and Sisters at KK in these efforts

There is still much to do;

▪ We plan to use this downtime to enact changes/improvements to our PPE policies. Using the Best
Practices learned from local companies, our Customers, and others, we have ordered face masks and
face shields to help ensure we work safely
▪ We are examining various work cells to determine how best support social distancing and have ordered
many face shields to promote a safe environment
▪ We are making plans to call people back in correlation with our Customers’ new demands and
communicate this to each employee by HR when start dates are known
▪ We will bring in teams of Maintenance and Engineering a few days before Production is to start. This will
help us find and solve problems proactively
 Katayama American Company, Inc.
6901 Midland Industrial Drive
Shelbyville, KY 40065
Phone: (502) 633-7280
Fax: (502) 633-2537

▪ We will bring in Supervision and Team Leaders a week early for a refresher training on Standard Work
and Control Plan walks
▪ We will disinfect work cells, bathrooms, breakrooms and other areas where we all gather prior to
returning to work
▪ We have set up an email – Kacistrong@kaci.com for you to use to offer suggestions or comments about
our preparations so far and to offer additional ideas to start up production in a strong and safe
environment. We will monitor this email between now and until we return to work

It goes without saying things are changing rapidly in our world. The best laid plans sometimes need to be altered
within days – even hours. We cannot predict with any certainty when our Customers will return to work, nor can
we estimate what programs and what volumes will ramp up. Current expectations are that most OEM’s are
planning to return to work in late April/early May, but again, this can change at any time. In this rapidly changing
time, continue to use the Hotline for the latest information. We update it as we get new information from our
Customers.

We are doing everything we can do to make the best of a challenging situation; to use this period to focus and
improve our company and to ensure we all come back to a healthy and safe workplace. Look for more of these
letters as we continue our efforts to prepare for our return to work. Please be sure to take care of yourself and
your family. Follow the rules for Social Distancing, Hand Washing, and the rest of the Guidelines given by our
Government and Healthcare Professionals. As difficult as these times are, they will come to an end. We will get
through this. We will face a new reality, post-COVID – and we will do so together.

Remember, the most important part of KACI is… YOU.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Masayuki Katayama
President and CEO

Larry Carlson
COO