Diamonds in the Rough : Amid the devastation of the Japanese market, opportunity seekers are finding many hidden values in some of the country's smallest, least-well-known companies.

There are many potentially lucrative little secrets hidden in Japan, and Haruo (Hal) Shimizu is happy to show off one. He guides visitors through a labyrinth of hissing hydraulic presses and oily assembly lines at the Exedy Corp., where workers with mallets pound together transmission components used in cars, trucks, forklifts and cranes. Past this scene out of industrial Japan, Shimizu comes to the cutting-edge heart of the plant, the research-and-development area, where engineers at control boards test prototype components. They've come up with a new technology for the lightweight transmissions used in hybrid and fuel-cell-powered vehicles, which are starting to catch ...