Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. (TYO:7282) has invested in Counterworks Inc., a startup company that provides support for the digital transformation of retail and commercial facilities. Counterworks also offers a range of other services, such as visualizing customer behavior in stores and utilizing Retail as a Service (RaaS) to offer tenant recruitment. While Toyoda Gosei is focused on supplying automakers with...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) has managed to accurately decipher the complex genome sequence of guayule, an alternative to natural rubber. This comes as part of a joint research project between the tire manufacturer and NRGene Ltd., a company focused on genomic big data solutions. Bridgestone has been working since 2017 to diversify its natural rubber resources, looking here at getting more...
Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (TYO:4183) has received a letter of gratitude from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), thanking the company for working over the past year to boost its raw material production for medical gowns, masks and so on. With COVID-19 starting to spread widely around the world last spring, there was a shortage of medical gowns. And...
Nichirin Co. Ltd. (TYO:5184) President Ryuichi Maeda has revealed that as part of its European restructuring efforts, the automotive hose manufacturer intends to start up hose assembly operations in the central Bulgarian town of Karlovo this March. This assembly will be contracted out to a local manufacturer. Then if automaker approval can be obtained, the company intends to move half...
Ikuji Ikeda, president of the Japan Rubber Manufacturers Association (JRMA) and Chairman of Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. (TYO:5110), gave his thoughts recently on the state of Japan’s rubber industry and what opportunities lie ahead for domestic players. While companies have had to change as a result of the pandemic, Ikeda noted, this has then made it possible to turn difficult...
Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. (TYO:7282) recently announced that it has invested in Ball Wave Inc., a Tohoku University startup company engaged in the development and sale of chemical sensors. By using surface acoustic waves (SAWs) – a physical phenomenon discovered by Tohoku University researchers – Ball Wave is working to commercialize what are called ball SAW sensors. Such sensors are...
