Innholdsfortegnelse for December 24, 2021 i Newsweek International

Made world famous by Toyota, monozukuri is a concept found at the core of all Japanese manufacturers, from those making cars to those making cardboard boxes. While monozukuri focuses on high-quality, perfection, and fine attention to detail, it also entails the constant pursuit of innovation guided by a response to customer, industrial and societal needs. “After WWII, the Japanese economy grew exponentially and Japanese firms focused on developing their monozukuri, which consequently enhanced Japan’s industrial sector as a whole,” explains Akiyoshi Kitamura, president of PACRAFT, a renowned manufacturer of filling and packaging machinery. “Japanese manufacturers during that period really challenged themselves. One aspect of the Japanese population that drove this sector to what it is today was the high demand of consumers and the monozukuri craftsmanship required to fulfil these…

“The structure of this product may look simple, but it is the fruit of the Japanese spirit of monozukuri.”Takao Morizane, CEO, Misumaru Sangyo Co., Ltd. “When I saw this product in the newspaper, I knew I had to try it. I immediately made an appointment with the manufacturer,” recalls Mr. Takao Morizane, CEO of the Misumaru Group, upon first seeing Woodtique. Mr. Morizane decided to visit the manufacturer of Woodtique, which is now part of the group, and was so taken with the product that he agreed to become its sole worldwide distributor the same day. The product consists of very thinly sliced wood boards attached to a specially manufactured, noncombustible paper substrate. The structure of this product may look simple, but it is the fruit of the Japanese spirit…

Behind every great smile is a great toothbrush, and people from all walks of life are focusing on their dental hygiene more than ever. Yamato Esulon offers its partners the opportunity to sell the most innovative dental products with the assurances and know-how that 90 years of experience in the business brings. As an OEM, the company prides itself on its ability to tailor its industry-standard machinery to meet the needs of its business partners, working to strict deadlines, and preventing leaks of company information. As President Toshiharu Matsushita says: “Our ability to deliver on our promises is what builds trust with our customers.” This trust has enabled Yamato Esulon to produce toothbrushes for electronic giants such as Panasonic, and the company is proud of its history of renewed orders…

An Affordable Bionic Hand “We wanted to upgrade [military veterans] to the 21st-century.” AADEEL AKHTAR — FOUNDER AND CEO, PSYONIC WHEN AADEEL AKHTAR WAS 7 years old, he met a little girl who changed his life. His parents took him to see family in Pakistan, where they’d been born, and they were walking into a store when he saw her. She was missing her right leg. “That was actually the first time I had met someone with a limb difference,” he says. “She was about my age, using a tree branch as a crutch, living in poverty.” He never learned her name, never spoke to her or saw her again. But he never forgot her. He got a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and now, at 34, is founder and head of…

Collaborative Tech to Develop New, Affordable Drugs “It’s an outrage that billions of people have no access to the new vaccines. We need a new model.” JAYKUMAR MENON — CO-FOUNDER, OPEN PHARMA AMONG THE MANY SOCIETAL shortcomings the pandemic has laid bare, the failure to get drugs and vaccines to many people who need them is one of the most painful and urgent. For many people around the world, the shots that arrived so expeditiously to those in the rich countries are still out of reach. “It’s an outrage that billions of people have no access to the new vaccines,” says human rights lawyer Jaykumar Menon. “We need a new model.” After years working as a lawyer and advocate, Menon saw a way to potentially help millions of people realize…

OLIVIA COLMAN IS CONTINUING HER STREAK OF INCREDIBLE PERFORmances with two big ones this December. First is the HBO miniseries The Landscapers (Mondays in December), based on the true story of Susan and Christopher Edwards, the mild-mannered British couple charged with the murder of Susan’s parents and with concealing it for years. “The most bizarre parts of the script were the bits that were real—the film memorabilia, the sort of fantastical escapism in her mind, and the escape for 15 years after this terrible crime was committed. It’s an amazing story.” The second project for Colman is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, the film The Lost Daughter (Netflix, December 31). “Some directors are just gifted and amazing, but it is particularly lovely being directed by someone who has also been an…

“Whenever we decide to set up new factories, we try to step up our unique processes so we can assure our productivity and quality. This helps us keep our competitive edge.”Mitsuo Nakahashi, President & COO, Tomoku Co., Ltd. With its unique business strategy across three distinct business segments – cardboard manufacturing, housebuilding, and logistics – TOMOKU is a company with diverse operations and interests. Thinking outside of the box, therefore, comes naturally to the organization, particularly when you consider one of its main product lines is the humble box itself; a product which has engendered a surprising amount of innovation over the years. “The cardboard box is a product that, when looking at it, you can’t really tell in which country in the world it has been made, or which…

Founded in 1908 in Seki, Kai Corporation is a leading Japanese manufacturer of blades and related products in the cooking, beauty, grooming, and medical fields. The company boasts a significant – and growing – international presence. Known as the ‘city of swordsmiths’, Seki boasts a history stretching back over eight centuries as the home of forging blades in Japan. It is, in the words of Kai president Hiroaki Endo (the great-grandson of the firm’s founder, Saijiro Endo) “one of the three most important centers for swordsmanship in the world, together with Solingen in Germany and Sheffield in the United Kingdom”. Kai embraces its rich local heritage, highlighting in its mission statement a devotion to “passing down the skill and spirit which continue to flow in this land”. It’s a commitment…

“In order to produce a product that we are satisfied with, we keep improving it.”Hisashi Nakajima, President, Nippon Closures Co., Ltd. When you think of a product on the shelf of any super store, the first thing you often imagine is not about the product itself – or its core contents – but how that product looks and presents itself from the outside: its packaging. Indeed, packaging is integral to a product’s brand and how the product appeals to diverse consumer tastes through the character, personality and functionality that it provides. As it turns out, with a culture that places the highest value on beauty, quality, and function in the manufacturing process through a long tradition for monozukuri (fine craftsmanship), the Japanese are unsurprisingly masters of packaging solutions. “The Japanese…

“Moving forward, we see a trend of reduced plastic product use worldwide and using materials that are more easily recyclable.”Akiyoshi Kitamura, President, PACRAFT Co., Ltd. Since its inception in 1960, PA-CRAFT has strived to apply advanced technologies to build pouch fill/sealing machines and automated systems to meet the diverse needs of its customers, all while never losing sight of one of its core philosophies: once a client, always a client. PACRAFT’s customers have become familiarized with looking to the company to solve their problems and produce creative solutions. PACRAFT’s unmatched attention to detail assures customers that its durable and high-performing equipment can be used for the maximum length of time. One increasingly more desired need expressed by PA-CRAFT’s range of customers is IoT compatibility. PACRAFT is therefore always happy to…

Scott Anthony Senior Partner, Innosight Shannon Austin Founder, Work in Progress Consulting Erik Brynjolfsson Director, Stanford Digital Economy Lab; Professor, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI Joshua Gans Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto Mark Greeven Professor of Innovation and Strategy, International Institute for Management Development John Hall Co-founder, Calendar.com Arlan Hamilton Founder & Managing Partner, Backstage Capital Fran Hauser Startup investor, author of The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate Linda Hill Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School Michael Hyter President, CEO, The Executive Leadership Council Stephanie Laffin Executive Director of Creative Affairs for Wade Davis Joseph LeDoux Professor of Neural Science and Psychiatry at NYU Rita McGrath Professor, Columbia Business School Bernard Meyerson Chief Innovation Officer Emeritus,…

AI and Big Data to Help Feed the World “The most critical tool for success in the [food] industry—data and knowledge—is becoming cheaper by the day.” SARA MENKER — FOUNDER, CEO, GRO INTELLIGENCE BY 2050, THE UNITED NAtions says, we’re going to need 70 percent more food to feed the nine billion people living on Earth. Global climate change threatens to upend their lives—worsening storms, droughts, heat waves and crop diseases. What kind of a world will we leave to our grandchildren? Sara Menker says the problem may be even more urgent than the U.N. suggests. In 2017, she gave a TED talk in which she said a “tipping point,” beyond which global food markets become too overwhelmed to function effectively, could come in just a few years. “We discovered…

Making Sure Musicians Get a Fair Shake Via Blockchain “I’ve never been more optimistic.” GEORGE HOWARD DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN a gulf between the few musicians who make it big and the many, many others who have to do something else to pay the bills. That was true in the days of Mozart, who died in debt. It was true in the golden age of rock music, when record companies promoted a few stars like The Beatles and Michael Jackson. And it’s still true in the age of Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services, when most musicians get pennies for their work. “If you’re on Spotify right now, listening to my band, you’d have to stream one of our songs 786 times for…

Master of the Metaverse “We’re creating a platform where people learn together, work together, experience entertainment together.” DAVID BASZUCKI — CEO, ROBLOX IMAGINE A WORLD IN which you can be anyone you want—a superhero, a rock star, a science fiction monster or an angel. You can play games or meet up with friends. You can go anywhere in this world in an instant. You can live your fantasies. At least until your mother yells to turn off the computer and come to dinner. That’s the metaverse—a virtual reality online world defined, in part, by a computer engineer named David Baszucki and the company he started, Roblox Corp. Baszucki didn’t invent the metaverse (the word was coined by novelist Neal Stephenson in 1992), but Roblox says it attracts 47 million active…