In 1948, the then 25-year-old Heinz Kaiser decided to give up his full-time job and set up his own business near Zurich instead. He wanted to drive forward the development of high-quality tools in order to keep pace with the increasing productivity of machine tool technology.

His vision and professional ethics are continued seventy years later by Big Kaiser Precision Tools, now part of the Big Daishowa group of companies, and still play an important role in the group's global development and manufacturing strategy.

The next generation of products developed in Switzerland already offer the connectivity required for the upcoming Industry 4.0 production environments. The new EWE fine boring heads, for example, connect wirelessly to a user-friendly app for smartphone and tablet to facilitate monitoring and configuration of the fine boring head. This allows operators to read changes in the turning diameter and helps them to determine the optimum cutting parameters. The app also includes the storage of all previous settings of all tools that have been synchronized with it. It therefore provides essential information for the implementation of smart manufacturing in the company.

To mark its 70th anniversary, parent company Big Daishowa invited the entire team to its headquarters in Osaka, Japan. The employees traveled in two groups of 40 participants each and were warmly welcomed by the German-speaking Japanese employees. In addition to a two-day visit to BIG Daishowa, the program included a trip to Kaiyukan, one of the world's largest public aquariums, a trip to Kyoto and a harbour tour in Osaka.

Takuya Ichii, CEO of Big Kaiser, said: "In the 70 years since Heinz Kaiser was founded, Big Kaiser Präzisionswerkzeuge AG has always stood for the highest quality and perfection. We would like to thank our customers, friends and colleagues who have actively supported us over these seven decades."

Company founder Heinz Kaiser had very clear goals in mind: modern tools that were manufactured in his own workshop and met the highest standards. This meant designing well-balanced and robust tools that were capable of drilling holes with the highest precision and surface quality.

Over time, this commitment to continuous research and development has been complemented by decades of experience in the development, manufacture and application of efficient cutting tools. The result was a complete range of CKB (KAB) tooling and clamping systems for drilling, milling and fine boring, which are still used today in many industries worldwide.