CSO (Chief Standardization Officer) Message

The Role of the CSO in Pursuing "Planetary Health"

Our group aims to become an "innovative company that solves social issues together with global partners" under the slogan of pursuing "Planetary Health (the health of people and the Earth)" as part of our medium-term management plan. One of our key themes is the international standardization of advanced analytical measurement methods. Standardization ensures compatibility, quality, performance, and safety of products and services, enhancing convenience. A unified approach to analytical and evaluation methods is crucial for standardization, enabling us to monitor, assess, and improve environmental pollution, thereby securing our safe and secure lives. In many cases, analytical & measuring instruments are utilized for standardization. For us, whose core business is analytical & measuring instruments, standardization is truly our mission and an initiative that leads to the pursuit of planetary health. However, the usual standardization process takes 3 to 5 years, necessitating a process that can respond swiftly to new products and services arising from remarkable technological innovations. Therefore, it is essential to anticipate the standardization needs of the future and advance accordingly. I am committed to promoting our standardization strategy towards pursuing planetary health by creating a framework across the entire group.

Goals as Milestones in the Medium-Term Management Plan

The current medium-term management plan began in April 2023, and one of the seven foundational enhancements is "strengthening international standardization and regulatory response capabilities." This is the first time that "standardization" has been explicitly included as a strategy in our group's long history. Alongside the initiation of the medium-term management plan, we established an International Standardization Group within the Research & Development Management Department to promote standardization effectively. Currently, this group supports standardization projects across business units, collaborating with overseas locations while advancing standardization in a centralized and visible manner.

Achievements and Challenges in the Second Year of the Medium-Term Management Plan

Reflecting on the past two years, we have achieved three significant milestones. First, international standard specifications, such as ISO and ASTM International, have been issued from standardization projects in which our group has actively participated for several years, contributing to material and water quality analysis. Additionally, we have initiated standardization projects aimed at resolving social issues related to microplastics and PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which raise health concerns). Second, we have established a global standardization promotion system within our group, comprising five locations in Japan, North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and China, each year advancing international standardization with a designated theme. Third, the awareness and importance of our standardization strategy have increased significantly within the group since its inclusion in the medium-term management plan, leading to proactive initiatives emerging across various areas.

However, challenges remain. Perhaps the flip side of the results is the lack of resources that has become apparent as a result of the increase in examples of initiatives. To promote the standardization of analytical methods, we first need to obtain a substantial amount of analytical data, but we currently lack the necessary resources. Nevertheless, I view this challenge positively as a reflection of our internal commitment to standardization. Moving forward, we will strengthen collaboration between departments and enhance external partnerships. For instance, in North America, we have begun collaborating with major contract analysis companies and government agencies, which are also our customers, to develop new analytical methods through data acquisition. We aim to establish a model case for business expansion centered around external collaboration and standardization.

Future Initiatives

As reiterated, standardization activities cannot be accomplished in just one or two years; thus, we will continue our efforts based on the past two years. Among these, I would like to focus on three key points. First is talent development. We will cultivate mid-level and junior employees who will be responsible for our future standardization strategy. Even if we say, "Let's obtain ISO certification," it is meaningless if they do not know how to achieve it. The International Standardization Group will hold study sessions to convey various know-how, from the basics to collaboration with external organizations and etiquette for attending international conferences. Second, we will build a system to obtain a large amount of analytical data to address the resource shortage identified as a challenge. This will involve not only strengthening within the group but also collaborating with customers who will be users of the standardized analytical methods from the planning stage, promoting more realistic standardization and linking the insights gained to the development of user-friendly systems, including software. Third, we will foster collaboration between standardization and intellectual property. We are currently advancing the creation of a database for standardization and regulation linked to our intellectual property strategy. The foundational work for the database is underway, aiming to clarify the existing standards in various fields internationally and how our group can respond.

Furthermore, standardization is closely related to the so-called open-close strategy. While standardization is fundamentally an open strategy, it is not merely about being open; it requires strategically deciding what to protect, such as intellectual property, while determining what to open. The Intellectual Property Department conducts hearings with development teams from the initial stages of product specifications and designs, consulting with engineers on which technologies to patent and when. Initially, we expect to collaborate on one or two cases annually, integrating intellectual property strategy and standardization strategy from the early stages of development.

Through these efforts, we aim to provide standardized analytical methods, including the necessary pre-treatment systems and reagents, in a more user-friendly manner, allowing a broader range of customers to utilize them with confidence. By realizing these End-to-End solutions, we aspire to become a company that not only provides standardization and analytical & measuring instruments but also delivers value experiences and inspiration to our customers. We look forward to embodying our group's corporate philosophy of "contributing to society through science and technology" through standardization and pursuing planetary health.

Core Values in Our Work

Having built my career at the company as a hardware engineer in analytical & measuring instrument development, I believe that advancing new product development must yield products and technologies that provide value to our customers and can be used for a long time. To achieve this, I strive to understand the backgrounds and reasons behind our customers' challenges and requests, while constantly considering how we can provide new value experiences and inspiration through our new products and technologies.