On the occasion of SMC’s 60th Anniversary

Yoshiyuki Takada Chairman SMC Corporation

When SMC was established, it consisted of 8 employees that were mostly part timers. We didn’t have a phone of our own so, whenever required, we would use the phone of the small printing company next door. At that time, I had no idea that SMC would become a world leader. I was extremely busy and had no time to dream about such things.

60 years has been a long time, but in the end we took each and every day’s goals and moved forward, with each employee contributing their efforts, and accumulating all of these achievements to bring us to the success we see today. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all employees, working together for today’s success.

If we are to determine a factor of SMC’s success, I believe that it is well-balanced management. With many manufacturers, the power of the engineering departments tends to grow and there are many cases where investments can become bloated. SMC has valued it to sell things as to make things. Of course, we’ve made capital investments in our production but we’ve also made significant investments in our sales forces by increasing our personnel.

Also, more than 40 years ago, there was an opinion that applied products using pneumatics should be developed and manufactured. However, in an environment where we were too busy to develop such applied products by ourselves at all, SMC was thorough in creating parts for these applied products. As a result, we’ve come to this point by choosing the means to provide superior parts to talented engineers who develop applied products. This policy will not change in the future. As a manufacturer of pneumatic parts, we will offer what users really want, what they can easily use, and emphasize the advantages of lightweight, small dimensions, multi-functionality and energy savings.　Although it may depend on the changing world, I believe that SMC should continue to be dedicated as a parts manufacturer.

More than 70% of SMC’s sales are now from outside of Japan. SMC has sales points in 81 countries around the world and each of these are operating independently. I feel that we need to strengthen global collaboration and communication between Japan and overseas to demonstrate our comprehensive capabilities at a global basis.

If SMC were a person it would have become 60 years old of Kanreki (full circle of Chinese zodiacs calendar). However, I believe that SMC should take new actions in a rapidly changing world so that the next 60 years will be a second period of growth. In order to meet the expectations of many more customers, we should return to the "SMC Mind" that has existed since our founding, and we will work together as a company to undertake these future efforts.

27.4.2019