FUJI Holds FUJI Innovation Days in Philippines

FUJI Corporation held FUJI Innovation Days in Philippines 2019 in Alabang in the capital territory of Manila on Nov. 6 and 7. The event was held in response to strong demand from its customers who had been requesting the company to hold Technical Seminar in the Philippines.

Mitsugu Sagara, Director and General Manager of FujiPhilippines Services, Inc. (FSI), says, “Our company has been able to gain gaining competitive advantage in the Philippine market as we have provided fulfilling after-sales services, aside from the provision of high-performance equipment. In particular, resident Japanese engineers who attend to customers’ needs have been acclaimed by our customers as a strength of FUJI, which is not the case with our competitors.”

Expansion of Opportunities
FujiPhilippines Services, Inc. marks the 22nd year in business since the time when it was operating as Fuji Machine Philippines before it became a Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) accredited company. The company was established with the aim of supporting outsourcing companies for European automotive manufacturers. However, at present, it is dealing with a wide range of companies, which operate the mounting of components in the Philippines. Japanese, European, and Korean companies account for about 70 percent of customers. However, in recent years, local companies have also begun to gain strength.

Speaking about the Philippine market, Sagara says, “Many companies consider that it will be some time before full-scale automation starts in the Philippines, where inexpensive labor is still available compared with China and Thailand. Nonetheless, some companies have begun to explore automation, in part to improve the quality of their products. We considered that it was necessary to enhance the provision of products that meet these requirements and exhibited Fuji Smart Wing (Robot) as a reference product at THE 16th PHILIPPINE SEMICONDUCTOR & ELECTRONICS CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION, which was held from May 30 to June 1, 2019 at SMX Convention Center.

FUJI Innovation Days in Philippines 2019, a two-day event that was held in Alabang, ended a great success, drawing more visitors than expected. Alongside the seminar on advanced technologies, a workshop, including the introduction of leading-edge technologies, was held, where active technical exchanges with visitors were conducted.

Sneak Preview of NXTR
Aside from highlighting critical technologies relevant to locally-based manufacturers, FUJI Innovation Days Philippines 2019, which was held in The Bellevue Manila in Alabang, also served as a sneak preview of the NXTR FUJI Smart Factory platform. The company introduced NXTR in May and plans to release it to the global markets including the Philippines next year.

Sachimaru Takeno, Manager, Sales Engineering Sec. 2, Sales Engineering Dept., Robotic Solutions Div. at FUJI said they expect the NXTR will be received well in the Philippines in the same manner the NXT Series have been received for the past years.

“The NXTR aims to help manufacturers realize smart factory and strengthen the ability to maintain high quality and productivity,” says Takeno.

The company has been holding FUJI Innovation Days in Japan for the past several years. For this year, it will be held in Kanazawa on December 17 and in Kobe on December 20.

Takeno said FUJI has been holding FUJI Innovation Days in Japan for the past several years and this event in the Philippines was based on the active requests from its domestic customers.

The first day of the event was devoted to Japanese-speaking customers while the second day was devoted to English-speaking customers. Topics tackled during the two-day forum included mounting trends and solutions, latest mask technology, latest reflow technology, as well as the company’s next-generation mounting processes and roadmap.

This article appeared on the December 2019 issue of Asia Electronics Industry (AEI) magazine, a monthly B2B electronics news magazine published by Dempa Publications Inc. The full link of the article may be found here: https://aei.dempa.net/issue/december-2019hb/fuji-holds-fuji-innovation-days-in-philippines/