It was the year following the second oil crisis.The Japanese economy was in chaos, buffeted by the aftermath of the surge in commodity prices.In these circumstances, a small water heater manufacturer was founded in Yamaguchi, the origin of the Meiji Regeneration.The name of the company was Choshu Industry.In these turbulent times, we founded a manufacturing company, something that might have been considered reckless.The driving force behind our founding was pure desire.That is namely a desire to supply ample hot water to the Japanese people, who love taking baths. Having started with this desire, we at Choshu Industry have continued to improve our technologies surely, step by step, making a bold attempt to enter a new field in the crunch.Today, we have evolved into a comprehensive provider of residential energy systems, vacuum process equipment and services.
While times have changed since the era of our founding, long-term constraints on energy supply, such as global warming and the increasing demand of resources attributed to the development of emerging economies, remain major issues in our current environment.At Choshu Industry, we believe we could help resolve those environmental and energy constraints by encouraging the use of solar power generation.After we entered the solar power system business in 1998, we built a system for domestic integrated production, from the production of wafers for solar cells to that of modules, in rapid succession by taking advantage of the technologies we had honed through the development of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.We subsequently began to work on the development of power storage systems, which has been one of our mainstay businesses.
The history of our development and manufacturing of vacuum process equipment, which is another of our core technologies, dates back to the business of providing maintenance service for semiconductor manufacturing equipment, which we launched four years after our foundation.In those days, the Japanese semiconductor industry was in its growth period.Major manufacturers had increased their domestic production capacity and needed new subcontracting companies.Of course, we had no knowledge in the semiconductor business at all because we were a water heater manufacturer. However, convinced that this was a promising business, we selected six elite engineers from among only sixty something employees, and sent them to learn semiconductor technologies.This team of elite engineers, who accepted the mission with unwavering resolve, acquired the technologies in a short period and built the foundations of our vacuum process business.Including our mechatronics technologies, we have improved evaporation and sputtering deposition as advanced technologies. With the rise in the production of semiconductors, liquid crystal displays, and organic EL, we have eventually entered the global market.
We launched the hydrogen energy business by applying the technologies we had cultivated through solar
power generation and vacuum
equipment.In the hydrogen industry, which is very new to us, we have held out the ideal of producing
hydrogen with solar power and fueling cars with hydrogen. Thus, we have launched SHiPS, as our first
demonstration
equipment.We will move forward, step by step, to build a hydrogen
society.
We are aiming to commercialize biomass processing equipment in the future.The equipment extracts energy from organic residue, including food residue and livestock manure from local communities, through vacuum drying.We will enable regional energy circulation by processing organic residue, thereby contributing to improving the environment, revitalizing the regional economy, and ultimately addressing the issue of global warming.
We step forward boldly without fearing new challenges.This is engraved in our DNA, and the company name shows our determination to succeed the spirit of our predecessors, who played the leading role in the Meiji Regeneration to change the world better.The future will need the optimal energy management system consists of integrated solar power generation, power storage technology, and clean hydrogen energy technology that only discharges water.We will lead the practical application and spread of next-generation technologies.
We move forward boldly, one step at a time, cherishing our origins.We, Choshu Industry, continue to take on challenges.
Susumu Okamoto, President