Raising the gas to 11,000 kilocalories and converting the capital’s appliances in-house (1972)

What the callers received

The character of this project shows in the fact that the house-by-house work was not put out to contractors. Alongside the practical argument that its own staff could put their knowledge to use, the company gave as a reason that the work would be an occasion to meet customers. Murakami Takeo, who became president in January 1976, said the inspection and repair of appliances had been left too much to outside firms, and that even where work was contracted out, staff must always call afterwards — this, he said, was by no means doing the job twice. That April a system began of distributing the name of a responsible employee to 5.2 million households.

Seventeen years of work did not run smoothly. Technical inexperience and ageing appliances were compounded by the discovery of large numbers of unregistered devices, and the phrase “conversion hell” survives inside the company. Protests born of distrust over safety grew fierce enough for the press to give them heavy coverage. The company itself looks back on it as an attempt that was possible only because it fell in the era of high growth — a solution available to a time that could spare the manpower.