potter's skill

Hi-tech from a potter's skill

Kazuo Inamori, president of the Kyocera Corporation, is a sort of Mr Honda of high technology. He is a technocrat, rather than a manager,or an accountant, and he preserves within his business philosophy a strong respect for divine inspira tion and guidance, and for the value of people.

His company’s admonition is “preserve the spirit to work fairly and honorably, and to respect people, our work, our company, and our country.”

And if the progress of Kyocera over the last 25 years is any indication, those are very good rules by which to operate.

Inamori himself is young, and a man still with the shopfloor touch, despite the enormous growth his corporation has made since it was founded in April, 1959, when he was but 22 years old. He is one of the leading figures in silicon chip production. Kyocera’s sales of ceramic materials for the elec tronics industry topped U 5545,826,000 in 1983, con tinuing their steady increase of about 20 per cent per annum.

Much of this came from thick film alumina substrates used in the hybrid integrated circuits of video recorders and in the new generations of automated office machines. But it was only about four per cent of total net sales for the corporation.

Electronic components them selves accounted for sales of U 55168,286,000, in 1983, an increase for the year of a shade under 50 per cent, representing 15 per cent of total net sales.

“We have dedicated our efforts to the development of original techniques for the manufacture of products which are capable of pleasing our customers” says Mr Inamori.

Judging by the latest results, that is something of an under statement.

Kyocera, originally the Kyoto Ceramic Company, founded with 28 employees and a capi tal of only 3 million yen (about Austs 18,000), now has more than 6000 employees, and assets totalling U 551,456,263.

Stockholders equity is U 551,126,085, after a share issue in February, last year, which raised U 55257,232,000.

The company has a world-wide business in ceramics, artificial gemstones, medical and dental implants, precision instruments, computers, solar energy, and electronics.

Total sales in fiscal 1984 were U 551,121,339,000, giv ing the company a net income after tax of U 55132,384,000.

Yet, when ordinary people talk of Japanese high technolo gy or electronics, Kyocera’s name is not usually included. It is in fact, a technologist to industry, known best to the insider who needs its services.

The lap computer on which this story is being written carries a famous international brand name, but it was in fact made by Kyocera. If you happen to be cruising along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California and can tear your eyes away from looking for movie stars (who are seldom seen around the streets, despite their publicity), you may see the lush Inamori gemstone shop. That, too, is part of the Kyocera organisa tion, for they make all of the extraordinary, lustrous, emer alds, sapphires, and other pre cious stones on sale there.

The Kyocera name is synonymous with the silicon chip, the tiny microprocessor which is the heart of all modem high technology, and it is lead ing the world in development of the ceramic engine in which many components are made essentially the same way as grandmother’s fine bone china.

“Kyocera will continue to

explore the remarkable prop enies and unlimited possibilities of fine ceramics,” says Mr In amori. “At the same time we will consolidate our technology so that we can keep giving the world products that contribute to industrial development, and a brighter future for all man kind.”

That sort of attitude suffuses all of the Kyocera organisation.

It is a company where even senior executives wear the blue company windcheater jacket that is seen all over the fac tories. Everyone, it seems, is caught up in the excitement of being at the sharp end of the world’s headlong rush into the electronic and ceramic future.

The field for ceramics does, indeed, look unlimited, and the range of Kyocera products now is enormous.

The company’s mainstay is electronic components for in dustry for radios, video machines, televisions, cars, cameras, watches, computers and all manner of control sys tems, compressing more and more into less and less space by means of advanced printing, molding and pressing techni ques.

Kyocera’s little lap computer is the size of a book, and costs less than $lOOO. Yet it is very much more versatile and powerful than the original UNI VAC which occupied more

space than a big suburban house and cost several million dollars. High-tech wags say that if the motor car had advanced at the same rate as the compu ter a Rolls-Royce today would cost $lO and go 1000 miles on a gallon of petrol.

Ceramic components for vehicle engines remain fairly expensive, but they have the advantage that they are imper vious to very high temperatures and pressures and also never wear out.

Fine ceramics (which is what Kyocera makes) are of course quite unlike ordinary ceramics, such as pottery. They use very pure materials, sintered metals, oxides, nitrides and carbides which allow production of com ponents of wondrous precision and fineness of finish.

NEXT MONTH Pacific Is lands Monthly will continue its visit to the seats of industry and authority in Japan with reports about trade, aid and politics gained during interviews with high-ranking officials of the Gaimusho (Foreign Ministry), the Department of Fisheries, and the all powerful Ministry of In ternational Trade and In dustry (M.1.T.1.).

If some industrial figures in Japan tend to idealise the Pacific, and see it prin cipally as one of the last bits of paradise left on earth, to be preserved, more or less intact, Japan’s diplomats and bureaucrats are more down-to-earth.

They realise the problems, and recognise the strategic importance of the islands in what they see as the grow ing Pacific community on which the future of this part of the world will depend.

Read their views in the August issue of Pacific Is lands Monthly. On your newstand about the first day of the month. Or fill in the coupon in this issue and take out a subscription.

If you need to know the FACTS about the Pacific, it’s money very well spent.

Mr Kazuo Inamori