OMRON Corp. announced the opening of OMRON R&D Collaborative Innovation Center (Shanghai) in China, its first major R&D facility outside Japan. Located in Shanghai Zizhu Science-based Technology Park, the US$9.7 million facility will focus on further developing Omron’s core competencies in sensing and control technology.
"The Center will provide a space for true collaborative innovation between Omron researchers and domestic institutions, who will work together to conceive and develop new applications of our sensing and control technology in the realms of safety, security, environmental preservation and health care," said Hisao Sakuta, President and CEO of Omron.
As part of its long-term management plan, ‘Grand Design 2010’, Omron has positioned ’business expansion in China’ alongside ’sales growth in new business areas’ as top priorities in order to achieve an intermediate goal of JPY 750 billion in consolidated sales and JPY 75 billion in operating profit for FY07.
Over the three-year period from FY04-06, Omron has made a series of strategic investments, totaling almost JPY 30 billion (approx. US$ 250 million), in the Chinese market. Until now, these have focused on production and sales network expansion, and include the establishment of a global design and production center for industrial automation in Shanghai and an automotive electronics production base in Guangzhou, the expansion of an electronic components factory in Shenzhen and setting up a purchasing unit in Shanghai to underpin the Company’s new centralized procurement strategy. With the opening of this Collaborative Innovation Center, Omron has now added R&D facilities to its operations in China.
The OMRON R&D Collaborative Innovation Center (Shanghai) will initially house the Omron Institute of Sensing & Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (‘ORS’), whose researchers are focusing on vision sensing, including facial recognition, and control technologies that equip machines with near-human levels of judgment. The Center will also welcome outside researchers and students working in related fields from Shanghai Jiaotong, Tsinghua, Xian Jiaotong, Zhejiang and other Chinese universities. Initially, around 100 researchers will be engaged in research on approximately 30 different themes. The numbers of both personnel and research themes will double by FY09, and grow further as internal business divisions set up individual research units in the Center.
