OREANDA-NEWS. Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. will newly construct an open lab at Yokohama Works as a place to create new value through the transmission of R&D capabilities and interaction and discussions with participants from outside of the company. From now on, we will further promote open innovation based on cooperation with customers and other companies, universities and public research institutions and others by using this facility.

Open innovation means to combine things like other companies' technologies, ideas and services, etc. with the company's own technology and is a new effort that will realize new business models, research outcomes and product development, etc.

The company raised “accelerated cultivation of new business” as one of the priority measures of the “Furukawa G Plan 2020,” the new mid-term management plan announced in May this year. We are strengthening “the use of open innovation” in order to realize this measure.

The company will newly construct an open lab (name: Fun Lab) at Yokohama Works as a place to transmit the R&D capabilities we have cultivated over many years, and as a place to create new value through interaction and discussions with participants from outside of the company.

The company set the Fun Lab concept as a place that creates open innovation with guests (co-knowledge) through mutual recognition of each other’s strengths (empathy), the sharing of new senses of value utilizing each other’s strengths (co-creation) and the joint expansion of those shared senses of value.

Furukawa Electric Group started business in 1884, when its copper-smelting facility and wire manufacturing factory was established. Since then Furukawa Electric has become pioneers in the latest technologies by addressing diverse technological issues. Furukawa Electric has released products in a number of areas, including telecommunications, electronics, automobiles, and construction, with the three types of materials it works with at their core, namely, optics, plastics, and metals. Many of these products have attained the top global market share, and all of its products have contributed to society in numerous business areas. Furukawa Electric reported consolidated revenues of JPY 874.9 billion (approximately USD 8.0B) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.