Harada: At present, our leading products are hose clamps, which are used in cars and gas-fired equipment. They are made by curling strips of steel into rings, which are clamped around rubber hoses where they connect to pipes in order to create a tight seal and prevent any leakage. Our share of the Japanese market is around 70%, and our share of the international market is around 30%.
Togo Seisakusyo developed the world's first spring band hose clamp in 1972. We patented the design and succeeded in making the conversion to mass-production. Auto manufacturers, our main clients, love these clamps; they're strong, durable, highly functional, and reliable.

Kondo: The Togo Seisakusyo company motto is "Always dedicate to society with products far better than those of yesterday." One factor in our ability to earn and retain trust is our determination to do more than simply make good products and be done with it, and to constantly refine and improve materials so as to achieve ever-lighter, ever-better products.
We are constantly coming up with ways to make work easier for those on the automobile assembly line, such as attaching holders to hose clamps and designing those holders so they can be attached with a single touch. We try to foresee clients' pain points before they recognize them.

Ikeda: One of Togo Seisakusyo's founding purposes is to "perpetually contribute to society through a lasting and mass-quantity supply of quality products both in Japan and overseas." So, for example, even if the technical departments come up with something that is functionally good, it's no use to us unless it can be mass-produced. Our current strength lies in our wealth of mass-production technologies, which we have amassed over long years in cooperation with the technical departments. In fact, these can be traced back to our early and ongoing determination to build our own forming machines.

Harada: Togo Seisakusyo originally made hoes and other farm implements. The company wanted to make stronger, more durable hoes, so we learned new techniques such as heat treatment and plastic forming of metal. These were the seeds that grew into our current strengths, and the mindset of that age still forms a major part of our present-day spring production practices. We are proud to carry on a long tradition of innovating to make things better.

Ikeda: Togo Seisakusyo pioneered the use of austempering heat treatment in Japan. This new method fulfilled one of our greatest enthusiasms, which was to develop and implement our own technologies even if they had not been proven in a mass-production set-up, so that we could improve the quality of leaf spring heat treatment. Over the company's long history, these processing technologies, heat treatment methods, and immeasurable volumes of expertise have gone on to become invaluable assets, proven through repeated trial and error.

Kondo: Ever since the company's inception, we at Togo Seisakusyo have sought out and overcome challenges, and that mentality lives on today—we love to solve problems. In fact, overcoming challenges invariably leads to new products and corporate growth.
At the Development Department, for instance, we have spent the last two decades striving to open up new fields in addition to our core segments like automotive springs. One area we have invested considerable effort in is social welfare and elderly care. One of our earliest developments was Okiraku, a device to assist people with mobility challenges raise or lower their body position with ease at the touch of a button, which we came up with around 20 years ago. A more recent example came in 2015, with the launch of "SMIBY", a "baby" robot designed to comfort and relax. SMIBY's body uses the resin molding technologies we developed over long years of producing automobile springs.
Also, we are in the middle of developing prosthetic limbs and other assistive devices.