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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Japanese multinational construction giant Komatsu is a front-runner, in Japan as well as globally, in the development and deployment of renewable energy, efficiency, automation and robotics. It is also a repeat winner of the coveted Deming Prize and numerous other awards for excellence, innovation and environmental protection. It is important to stress that Komatsu has a history of impressive achievement as preface to suggesting that, on January 20, it held a possibly epochal press conference. Komatsu's presser unveiled a new paradigm of “smart construction,” one aimed at revamping the construction industry with a robotics revolution. Komatsu staged its announcement in Shibuya's capacious Hikarie Hall, a focal point and showcase of Japanese rail and real-estate conglomerate Tokyu Corporation's smart city strategies. With a GPS and camera-equipped drone hovering overhead, Komatsu CEO Ohashi Tetsuji declared that, from February 1, his company would begin offering smart construction options at its 123 sales outlets within Japan. Komatsu calculates that its smart approach can cut project costs by at least 20-30 percent through the use of robotics, including the multi-sensor drones; cloud computing through its “KomConnect” platform to process the massive flows of information; and further automation to displace reliance on scarce labour while increasing precision and decreasing waste. Komatsu, the world's second largest manufacturer of mining and construction equipment (behind Caterpillar), and the biggest in Asia (including China), also intends to make smart construction a global product by March of 2016.
1 On the Deming Prize for Total Quality Management, established in 1951, see the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) page describing its history, awardees and other pertinent information. On Komatsu's 2014 selection for the Deming Prize, as well as concise information on why Komatsu wins prizes for innovation, see “Deming Prize,” Komatsu Newsletter, No. 24, March 2014. Komatsu's environmental awards are listed in the “Recent External Commendations and Evaluations on Komatsu's Environmental Conservation and Social Activities” section of its corporate website.
2 The role of Hikarie Hall is described on pages 4-6 of (in Japanese) Tokyu Managing Director Watanabe Isao's 2013 presentation “Concerning the City-Design Concept of Tama Denen Toshi as a Community that can Cope with Epochal Change,” to the Ministry of Lands Infrastructure and Transport. On the global significance of the “Tokyu Method” of building Tama Denen Toshi, see the short note “Tama Denen Toshi New Town (Tama Garden City), Japan.”
3 See “Robot Revolution Realization Council,” Japanese Prime Minister's Office Homepage, January 23, 2015.
4 Komatsu's corporate history is available here.
5 Komatsu's history and innovative strengths are deftly described by Yozo Hasegawa in Rediscovering Japanese Business Leadership: 15 Japanese Managers and the Companies They're Leading to New Growth (translated by Anthony Kimm), John Wiley and Sons, 2010: 145-56.
6 Gary D. Allinson, Japan's Postwar History (Second Edition), Cornell University Press, 2014: 104-5.
7 For example, on Komatsu's robot-welding R&D see (in Japanese) “Komatsu Deploys Robot Welding Domestically and Overseas to Maintain Quality and Cut Costs,” Nikkei Shimbun, February 17, 2014.
8 See Sony's employee data.
9 William R. Haycraft, Yellow Steel: The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry, University of Illinois Press, 2000.
10 The hybrid equipment is reputed to achieve at least 45% reduction in fuel consumption. See “Komatsu Introduces the World's First Hydraulic Excavator: Hybrid Evolution Plan for Construction Equipment,” Komatsu Press Release, May 13, 2008.
11 See “Komtrax: Komatsu machine monitoring a tracking system.”
12 See (in Japanese) “Komatsu to complete refurbishing of 2 domestic facilities in 2014, with Awazu factory completed by May,” Daily Engineering and Construction News, May 1, 2014.
13 See (in Japanese) “Renewable energy for effective CO2 cuts: Developing and distributing the world's most efficient thermoelectric generation modules,” Komatsu Press Release, January 27, 2009.
14 The thermoelectric generation applications at the Awazu factory are described (in Japanese) in “Dealing with climate change (goods and service that combat climate change): thermoelectric generation,” Komatsu CSR report 2014.
15 See Tsunashima Yuta, “Komatsu shows off progress in ‘energy independence’ at plants,” Nikkei Asian Review, May 31, 2014.
16 See (in Japanese) “Thinking about the environment and energy, business, academe, government symposium at Utsunomiya attended by 120,” Shimotsuke News, January 25, 2015.
17 See (in Japanese) “Japan's Robot Strategy,” Committee for the Implementation of the Robot Revolution, January 23, 2015.
18 See “Govt to expand robot market to Y2.4 tril.,” The Japan News, January 24, 2015.
19 The context for the drone display is a presentation on the disastrous August 20, 2014 mudslides in Hiroshima City. See from 3:30 of the video (in Japanese) “Committee for the Implementation of the Robot Revolution: September 11, 2014”. On the mudslides, see Andrew DeWit, “Hiroshima's Disaster, Climate Crisis, and the Future of the Resilient City”, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 35, No. 2, September 1, 2014.
20 Noji Kunio's presentation (in Japanese) was given on January 23, 2015, and is here.
21 Tsuda Junji's presentation (in Japanese) was delivered on the same day as Komatsu chair Noji Kunio's, January 23, 2015, and is available here.
22 See Michael E Porter, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Free Press, 1998, 384-421.
23 Eva Dou, “After Suicide, Foxconn Worker's Poems Strike a Chord,” Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2014; Jenny Chan and Pun Ngai, “Suicide as Protest for the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: Foxconn, Global Capital, and the State,” Asia-Pacific Journal, September 23, 2010.
24 Michael Gold and Yimou Lee, “Apple supplier Foxconn seeks to reduce 1.3m workforce, eyes robots,” The Age, January 28, 2015.
25 “‘Smart’ factory touted as an industrial model,” Korea Joongang Daily, January 26, 2015.
26 “Huis Ten Bosch theme park to get hotel staffed by robots,” Japan Times, January 28, 2015.
27 On Adam Greenfield's work and background, see his profile at Urbanscale.
28 See Adam Greenfield, “The smartest cities rely on citizen cunning and unglamorous technology,” The Guardian, December 22, 2014.
29 One of the most informative and credible institutions that details the use of weaponized drones, such as the Reaper and the Predator, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere is “Stop the War Coalition,” founded in September of 2001 in opposition to the post-9-11 “war on terror.” For their most recent report on drone strikes, see Chris Cole, “The dirty consequences of ‘clean’ US/UK drone wars that trash international law,” Stop the War News, January 5, 2015.
30 On the nightmarish scenarios, see the work of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge.
31 The endurance of thedeceptions about then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's active programme to build “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) is evident in the fact that 40% of Americans believe there was indeed a WMD programme and the US media continues to debate it. See Kevin Drum, “No, There's Still No Evidence There Was an Active WMD Program in Iraq,” October 15, 2014.
32 On the roots of technology used in smart phones and other devices, see Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State, Anthem Press, 2013.
33 See the SAE International excerpt “Boeing advances automation with smart and portable orbital drilling tools for 787,” from Wesley Holleman, Eric Whinnem and Madeleine Wrede “Smart Portable Tools: The Practical Solution to Agile Assembly,” SAE Int. J. Aerosp. 6(1):180-187, 2013:
34 See James Wallace, “Aerospace Notebook: New technology gives 787 a smoother ride,” Seattle PI, May 22, 2007.
35 Matthew Finnegan, “Boeing 787s to create half a terabyte of data per flight, says Virgin Atlantic,” Computerworld UK, March 6, 2013.
36 See Boeing's website.
37 See “Japan picks MV-22 Osprey for tilt-rotor aircraft purchase,” Stars and Stripes, November 21, 2014. On Okinawan opposition to the Osprey, see Matthew M. Burke and Chiyomi Sumida, “Japan opens door for possible shift of Ospreys off Okinawa,” Stars and Stripes, November 20, 2014.
38 On the Phantom Eye, see Boeing's outline.
39 Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, Simon & Schuster, 2014.
40 See Elizabeth Kolbert, “Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism?” New York Review of Books, December 4, 2014. See also Naomi Klein and Elizabeth Kolbert, “‘Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism?‘: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books, January 8, 2015.
41 Tim Maverick, “New Robo-Trucks Poised to Revolutionize the Mining Industry,” Wall Street Daily, May 21, 2014.
42 The list of Resilient Cities Acceleration Initiative partners.
43 See the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities.
44 See, in Japanese, the outline of a September 22, 2011 event titled “What is the Business Strategy in an Era When the Industrial Structure is at a Turning Point?” JRM CEO Kimura Blog.
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