(1) Package solution system providing total support for new product development by companies

The main business of Kikuchi Seisakusho is the production of prototypes and tools & dies for new product development by customer companies. As well as manufacturing products precisely in accordance with the customer’s blueprints, we provide customers with optimal solutions across all processes, from early stages when the product blueprint is available through to end product launch, encompassing materials, optimal processing methods, quality, production cost, and delivery. What makes our proposal capabilities possible is the original package solution system that allows us to accept orders for whole processes from design, prototyping, tool & die production, →mass production, assembly and inspection. As a company that provides integrated support for monozukuri with an original style, we take on the role of creating new technologies and products in many fields of manufacturing.

Flow of package solution system

The things that support the package solution system

State-of-the-art equipment and staff with artisan’s skill

• Each factory operates as a specialist plant with different technologies, including tool & die manufacturing, various types of molding and processing, sheet-metal press processing, machining and equipment design.
• More than 400 machines comprising 200 different types of state-of-the-art equipment that are on the same level in terms of quality and production volume as each specialized manufacturer.
• We can respond dynamically to a wide range of different products by transferring multi-skilled workers have received multiple types of technical training between factories based on the status of the order.
• As well as adopting state-of-the-art technical practices, we also put a lot of effort into improving and passing on artisan’s skill that can only be acquired through experience.
• The basis of competitiveness lies in technology that derives from a combination of artisan’s skill and state-of-the-art technology.

Technology

• Design, processing and manufacturing tools & dies
• Processing magnesium thixo molding (thixo molding)
• Processing metal injection molding
• (metal injection molding)
• Plastic
• Processing molding
• Technology of machining
• Precision and fine sheet metal
• Technology of machining
• Sheet metal precision press technology
• Hot chamber aluminum die casting (HC) technology

(2) Network of “cooperation with industry, academia and the government” that produces new technologies and new products

Kikuchi Seisakusho was an early adopter of open innovation with the aim of discovering and commercializing seed technologies that will underpin the future. We have expanded our collaboration network by engaging in joint research with universities and research institutions over more than 20 years, primarily at the MONOZUKURI Mechatronics Laboratory. We have also established joint ventures for projects that have moved on to product commercialization, primarily in the support and service robot^* field. We support commercialization, including financing, also bringing in national and local government.

*Robot assistants and service robots: Robots and other devices that augment people’s capabilities and assist them with living. Unlike industrial robots (automated machines) intended to improve work rates at factories, fine tuning is needed during production to suit the person using the robot and what they are using it for.

(3) Platform concept that provides powerful support to the “support industry”

Kikuchi Seisakusho defines the fields of robot assistants and service robots field as the “support industry” and is promoting an initiative to expand the market through the platform. We have established a structure to provide total support for group ventures that include verification, sales, and maintenance as well as monozukuri. This facilitates market development and helps maximize group capabilities.
We are also promoting the “100 Ventures Initiative” by making platform functions available to ventures out of the group. As part of this, we set up the World Robotec web site to publicize support industry technology and products, including outside the group.

Kikuchi Seisakusho group platform initiative

World Robotec

World Robotec, a website established to publicize support industry technology and products, currently posts 50 products from 30 companies, including companies out of the group. We aim to expand the content of the website to 300 products from 100 companies within a year. The website also posts incomplete products to allow verification and improvement.