News

  Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6770; President & CEO: Toshihiro Kuriyama) will construct a new building for research and development at its Furukawa R&D Center in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture. The project seeks to enhance the working environment for engineers and strengthen organizational synergies. This will be achieved by stimulating employee innovation and the interaction of minds through the facility’s design and state-of-the-art equipment. Use of renewable energy and other eco-friendly features will help the building claim Nearly ZEB (net zero energy building) status¹, supporting moves toward a decarbonized society. Work on the building will begin in January 2022 and is scheduled for completion in March 2023.

  Technological innovation is gathering speed within the automotive CASE domains of connected cars, autonomous driving, sharing and services, and electrification. In fact, manufacturing as a whole is undergoing a major structural transformation throughout the world. A fourth industrial revolution is underway as everything goes digital, driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and big data, enriching people’s lives. To power this kind of innovation, corporations are attaching greater significance to their frameworks for new product and technology development.

  Alps Alpine knows innovative capabilities must be fully harnessed to develop new products and technologies. We achieve this by actively recruiting engineers who possess diverse sets of values while also striving to build comfortable work environments where individuality is respected and engineers can perform their roles as they envisioned. This partially involves establishing a climate for lively exchange of ideas among engineers and creating opportunities for cooperation with units across the globe as well as personnel outside the company. Offices of the “New Normal” additionally demand provisions for preventing infectious disease and designs that are kind on the natural environment.

  As a state-of-the-art office supporting these new work styles, Alps Alpine will construct a new R&D building on the premises of its Furukawa R&D Center in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture. The concept is to create an “innovation core” in the rural setting of Furukawa for combining and inspiring global knowledge (see Fig. 1). Through workplace enhancements and design features to encourage lively interaction with personnel from Alps Alpine’s global network and outside the company, along with state-of-the-art equipment, the project seeks to stimulate employee innovation and synergies between organizational units. Provisions will also be made in design to prevent transmission of infectious diseases, such as through regulation of ventilation flows. This will give employees greater peace of mind as they go about their work.

  The facility will also incorporate comprehensive environmental considerations. Advanced technologies will allow optimization of air conditioning loads, outside air inflows and light settings, while renewable energy will be adopted to realize Nearly ZEB status and contribute to decarbonization of society.

  Work on the new building will commence in January 2022 with assistance in the form of a Miyagi Prefecture grant and is scheduled for completion in March 2023. Efforts will also go into strengthening recruitment of engineers, helping to revitalize employment in the region. Alps Alpine has a policy of firmly establishing itself in the community and will put that into practice through this state-of-the-art facility with a global reach extending from Furukawa in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture. With engineers able to pursue development in a comfortable environment brimming with creativity, Alps Alpine will look to accelerate the development of new products and technologies to generate new value.

Fig. 1: New R&D Building Concept