Research & Development

R&D center

Yokogawa, a provider of leading-edge "mother tools" and basic technologies to industry, recognizes that the development of new technologies for the future is one of its most important challenges and maintains continuous investment in R&D.

With the dramatic changes underway in our operating environment, we place a special emphasis on strategic thinking and planning for the future in our technology development activities. At Yokogawa, R&D consists of new product development and applied research for the relatively near-term and foreseeable future, and research with a longer-term perspective and greater uncertainty that is directed at generating new business opportunities. The business headquarters primarily handle new product development and applied research, while the Innovation Center is responsible for longer-term research.

The Innovation Center integrates the three specialized functions of long-term marketing, R&D, and market verification. Researchers assigned to these functions interact with each other as they formulate hypotheses about the difficult to-predict future, which are then verified through a process of cross-functional feedback. We have introduced scenario planning at the Innovation Center to predict future trends and are working with a broad range of global experts from enterprises, research institutions, industrial associations, and the media to continuously refine our outlook for the future, as formulated in multiple sets of scenarios. These scenarios are shared across the Company and utilized when defining research and business strategies.

The Corporate R&D Headquarters is responsible for conducting the following two types of research at the Innovation Center that will help to differentiate Yokogawa’s business in each scenario.

Every business at Yokogawa is based on measurement and centers on sensing technologies. Yokogawa positions in situ※1 sensing as a core technology. We research a wide range of measurement technologies that, for example, are capable of directly measuring, as opposed to indirect sampling, the state inside materials in manufacturing processes, and have made combined use of measurement and modeling technologies to visualize the internal state of non-transparent and impenetrable objects.

*1 in situ: From the Latin, meaning in the original place

【Case in point for R&D in fiscal year 2010: Battery evaluation system】

Example of an experimental battery
evaluation system

This measurement system can be used to assess the interior of a battery that cannot be measured directly. This allows us to determine whether self-discharge is happening and why. By measuring changes in battery impedance, the system is able to substantially reduce the amount of time it takes to run a battery test, shortening this from several days to several hours. This helps to reduce costs by resolving test process bottlenecks.

In strategic research, we identify technology themes and conduct research with the aim of clarifying what value will need to be provided in potential (not yet developed) markets. This is very important research that is guided by forecasts based on our scenario planning, and it seeks to address and resolve important challenges that we have identified in our business environment.

【Case in point for R&D in fiscal year 2010: Industrial augmented reality (AR)※2】

From an AR experiment

The interaction between people and systems will inevitably change as manufacturing plants become larger and are operated by an ever smaller workforce. Yokogawa’s Corporate R&D Headquarters is researching systems that will stay on top of this situation by supporting and augmenting the capabilities of human operators. This includes an operation support system that incorporates the know-how of experienced operators, and a system that can analyze the status of a device simply by capturing an image of it with a sensor.

*2 augmented reality: A view of elements in a real world environment that incorporates computer-generated information

• Yokogawa Technical Reports
  Yokogawa periodically publishes the Yokogawa Technical Report, which contains articles that take a detailed look at the technologies employed in Yokogawa's products.