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Friday, 3rd August 2012
In Business In Japan,
Japanese innovator develops bolt without nut
A Japanese man has used his innovative ability to develop a bolt that does not need a nut to secure it in place.
Kenji Hasegawa was singled out in a recent report by the Associated Press, which suggested Japanese industry was flagging due to a lack of creative thinking.
Hasegawa is apparently among a handful of innovators in Japan, with the country crying out for more creative minds to give it back its competitive edge.
The bolt invented by Hasegawa has been patented and is based on bolt within a bolt for securing parts, such as for automobiles, in place.
He is the head of an auto-parts supplier dubbed Lock’n Bolt Corp and is believed to be one of the few great thinkers that can inspire Japan to be more inventive.
Another entrepreneur highlighted by the report is Chiaki Hayashi, who makes big bucks teaching major companies how to become creative once more.
Her firm, Loftwork Inc, has taken in 900 million yen in annual sales and her aim is get the ball rolling on innovative thinking that “starts small but snowballs”.
Leading technology inventor William Saito explained why Japan has become less innovative, losing out to China as the world’s second-biggest economy.
He told the news provider: “In order to have innovation, you must accept a certain amount of failure. To the Japanese, this has become taboo.”
The expert explained that since the Japanese do not tend to cope well with failure, they rarely hand out second chances, making it hard for entrepreneurs to get an idea off the ground.
Attention was also drawn to the fact Japan is passing up the chance to leverage the rising yen by improving the spending power of Japanese companies overseas.
According to Trading Economics, exports have been the key driver of growth in the Japanese economy in the last six years, so it remains to be seen whether these innovators can revive the country’s creative ability.
Posted by Mark Smith