Furukawa Electric to Newly Construct an Open Lab in Yokohama
- We will promote open innovation and focus on the creation of new business -
Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. will newly construct an open lab(note 1) at Yokohama Works as a place to create new value through the transmission of R&D capabilities and interaction and discussions with participants from outside of the company. From now on, we will further promote open innovation based on cooperation with customers and other companies, universities and public research institutions and others by using this facility.
Background
Open innovation means to combine things like other companies' technologies, ideas and services, etc. with the company's own technology and is a new effort that will realize new business models, research outcomes and product development, etc.
The company raised “accelerated cultivation of new business” as one of the priority measures of the “Furukawa G Plan 2020,” the new mid-term management plan announced in May this year. We are strengthening “the use of open innovation” in order to realize this measure.
Details
The company will newly construct an open lab (name: Fun Lab) at Yokohama Works as a place to transmit the R&D capabilities we have cultivated over many years, and as a place to create new value through interaction and discussions with participants from outside of the company.
The company set the Fun Lab concept as a place that creates open innovation with guests (co-knowledge) through mutual recognition of each other’s strengths (empathy), the sharing of new senses of value utilizing each other’s strengths (co-creation) and the joint expansion of those shared senses of value.
Overview of Fun Lab
1. Main features
- Visitors can look at the company’s technology in the areas of superconductivity, nanotech and energy, centered on the company’s core technologies in metals, polymers, photonics, and high frequency electronics.
- For the Co-Creation Area, the company will adopt a layout surrounded by full-wall whiteboards and idea matching boards and devise a space where it is easy to create new value through discussions with people from outside of the company.
2. Address
Furukawa Electric Yokohama Works
2-4-3 Okano, Nishi-ku, Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture
3. Open day
August 22, 2016 (Monday)
4. Logo
The logo starts with “F” for Furukawa and incorporates the meaning of creating innovation by making the viewer imagine fun future creation. The color scheme of the logo expresses the development of the company’s technology with blue, the technology of other companies who will become partners through open innovation with yellow, and the technology that creates new value through their fusion with green, with those colors rising up as a spiral. The logo expresses the image of the fun of co-creation of open innovation that the company is aiming for.
(note 1)Open lab:
This is a facility that Stanford University of the USA introduced in 2003 aiming for the fusion of biology, physics and information engineering. The introduction of such facilities has advanced in Japan too not only at educational institutions such as Kyoto University, which newly opened the Kyoto University Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (Kyoto) in 2010 in an open lab format, but also at public research institutions and general companies.
About Furukawa Electric Group
Furukawa Electric (TSE; 5801, ISIN; JP3827200001) Group started business in 1884, when its copper-smelting facility and wire manufacturing factory was established. Since then Furukawa Electric has become pioneers in the latest technologies by addressing diverse technological issues. Furukawa Electric has released products in a number of areas, including telecommunications, electronics, automobiles, and construction, with the three types of materials it works with at their core, namely, optics, plastics, and metals. Many of these products have attained the top global market share, and all of its products have contributed to society in numerous business areas. Furukawa Electric reported consolidated revenues of JPY 874.9 billion (approximately USD 8.0B) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.
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