Dr. Yoshiharu Inaba
President and CEO, FANUC Ltd
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
April 1973 - August 1983: ISUZU Motors Limited
September 1983 - Present: FANUC LTD
June 1989: Vice President
January 1992: General Manager of Robo Machine Laboratory
June 1992: Senior Vice President
June 1995: Senior Executive Vice President
June 2003: President & CEO
MEMBERSHIP OF ACADEMIC SOCIETIES
The Japan Society for Precision Engineering
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
The Japan Society of Polymer Processing
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Past Chairman of JARA (Japan Robot Association)
Vice Chairman of JMTBA (Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association)
Board of Directors of JMF (Japan Machinery Federation)
BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENTS AS A COMPANY PRESIDENT
Fanuc developed the first NC in Japanese private sector in 1956. Since then, FANUC have continued to develop new technology into the products. In recent years, Dr. Inaba is steering this company by his strong leadership agreed with his accomplishment in Research and Development.
His career in FANUC had started as an engineer to develop Electric Injection Molding Machines. This development and accomplishment made an enormous influence on the injection molding industry, and contributed to create new market for Electric Injection Molding Machines.
In the four years after becoming the President, FANUC group’s sales volume has been expanded 1.8 times to 381,047 billion yen by launching globally competitive products into the markets.
FANUC has two principles, one is to set Research and Development and Robotization in the basis of management, the other is to preserve nature. FANUC had the honor of being presented with one of the Grand Prizes for the first Global Environment Award (1991), the Prize of the Minister of Ministry of Trade and Industry. FANUC approved the certification of ISO 14001 the business activities for FA and Robot produces at the entire business complex in 1999.
FANUC won the Prime Minister's Prize of the first Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award for its Robot Cell machining system featuring intelligent robots to perform long continuous hours of machining in 2005. Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award has been established this year to commend outstanding human resources and groups in diverse fields ranging from state-of-the-art technologies to traditional & cultural skills, thereby encouraging them to succeed and develop "Monodzukuri - the art of making goods" which has contributed much to the development of the Japanese industry & culture, and to providing the Japanese citizens with affluent lives.
FANUC won the 49th Okochi Memorial Production Prize on March 18, 2003 from the Okochi Memorial Foundation for "Development of Unmanned Fully-automated Machining System with Intelligent Robots for Long-hour Operation." FANUC Robot Cell system integrates intelligent robots with a high-speed horizontal machining center, in order to machine parts of varying shapes and weight, for 720 hours per month continuously. The system helps reduce the number of operators, machining fixtures and initial facility investment, bringing about significant reduction in machining costs per hour.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOCIETY
Dr. Inaba’s research paper entitled "Pressure Profile Trace Control of Electric Injection Molding Machine (the first report) - an application of learning control to flow pressure" received the 1999 (the 22nd) JSPE Award. The award is given to the authors of the most original research paper cited in the "Journal of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering" and the "International Journal of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering" with engineering and industrial merits, in order to encourage academic research and to promote precision engineering. The Precision Engineering Society also gives "JSPE Paper Prize" and "JSPE Technology Development Award." Among those awards, the "JSPE Award," a special honor to the recipient engineers, significantly encourages their research and development.
The FANUC FA & Robot Foundation was established in 1989 with its capital donated by FANUC. Since its inception, the foundation has provided subsidies to R&D efforts and supported international technological exchange in the field of advanced automation technologies. The foundation's "Original Paper Award" recognizes creative research papers of industrial merits in the fields of the Factory Automation and Industrial Robot. This award is selected by the foundation's Paper Awards Screening Committee out of the research papers recommended by five academic societies related to FA and Industrial Robots.
The FANUC FA & Robot Foundation is playing a valuable role by university professors and industry experts evaluating and identifying prospective research results, which will, then, further produce the next technologies.