FeatureChildhood and youth

The King of Boilers
Tsunekichi Takuma and His Company
This year marks 80 years since Tsunekichi Takuma founded Takuma Boiler Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
The technological philosophy on the basis of which developed the ﬁrst boiler to be produced in Japanhas withstood the test of time, and it is being carried on by the company s engineers today.

Feature: "TheKing of Boilers"This feature takes advantage of this milestone year to introduce the roller-coaster life of theTsunekichi was born on February 8, 1872, in the village of Omakoto in the Tohaku districtof Tottori Prefecture (the present-day town of Hokuei in the Tohaku district). Skilled withhis hands and an avid student from his youngest days, Tsunekichi diligently studiedclassical Chinese under his father, who ran a small private school. He had an older brothernamed Manzo and an older sister named Yone. Having heard about steam-powered
vehicles and other urban wonders from his brother Manzo, who was an elementary school
teacher in Kyoto, the young Tsunekichi resolved to travel to the city.
After convincing his father and brother to let him go to Kyoto at age 14, Tsunekichi
initially worked for a physician, but he changed his mind and decided to become amerchant around age 20. He entered the lumber trade at age 31 in 1903, but theRusso-Japanese War broke out in 1904, precipitating a rapid fall in the price of lumber andforcing him out of business. Already responsible for his wife and children, Tsunekichi tried
to reestablish himself in Korea with the aid of a friend when the war ended, but sad news
about the death of his wife at the time, Kameko, awaited him when he returned to Japanafter planning his business in Korea.

company s founder in order to make his story more familiar to readers.

Meeting his wife Kumako and encountering a boiler invention
The heartbroken Tsunekichi remarried Kumako
Harimura, who found herself in the same circumstances
as Tsunekichi, when he was 35.
Kumako supported Tsunekichiʼs efforts at invention
despite the householdʼs limited means; without her help,
the Takuma boiler would probably never have come tobe. The supportive wife is shown in proﬁle on a bust ofTsunekichi that was made after he achieved success.
Yet another encounter awaited Tsunekichi after heremarried Kumako and relaunched his lumber tradingbusiness: Yasaburo Okamoto, who would later push him
down the path toward inventing a boiler.
Yasaburo was working to invent a boiler as a source ofpower to operate lumbermill machinery. Tsunekichi wasenthralled when he heard about the proposed invention
and invested in the Okamoto boiler. The project,launched around the time that Tsunekichi was 38 years
old, failed, leaving Tsunekichi and his wife with anenormous debt.

“The King of Boilers”: Tsunekichi Takuma
Tsunekichi Takuma, the founder of Takuma, was also an
inventor who invented the Takuma boiler, the ﬁrst watertube-type boiler to be produced entirely in Japan. However,Tsunekichi didnʼt embark on his quest to invent the boiler
until around the time he turned 40. Before this layperson,
who didnʼt even understand the terminology in a
specialized text on boilers, would become known as “theking of boilers,” before he would earn a reputation as one ofJapanʼs 10 great inventors of the Meiji and Taisho periods,
before he would found Takuma, he would grapple with aseries of difﬁculties that he was only able to overcome
through a long process of trial and error.

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Tsunekichi and his wife, Kumako

A bust of Tsunekichi withhis wife Kumako shownin proﬁle on the side

“If you put your mind to it, you can do it”: A eureka moment on the Genkai Sea
Drowning in debt from his failed business and with his family on the verge of breaking up, Tsunekichi boarded a ship with
the intention of turning once more to his Korean friend. One night on the ship as it crossed the Genkai Sea, Tsunekichi
became overcome by the distressed condition in which he and his family found themselves and contemplated throwing
himself into the sea.
Just before doing so, he had an experience that he would later describe as a “revelation from heaven.” In that moment, hehad an epiphany concerning the driving force behind the love of invention that he had cultivated throughout his life, realizingthat communicating the fruits of his work to the world and contributing to human progress were the heaven-sent mission ofhumanity and simultaneously the greatest joy that one could have, and resolving that if he put his mind to the task, he would
be successful.
Following his return to Japan, Tsunekichi repaid the loan from his failed business, and in 1912, he overcame the oppositionof those around him to start work on inventing his own boiler at the age of 40.

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“Boilers are living things”: Tsunekichiʼs boiler research

Tsunekichiʼs second challenge: From the Takuma boiler to the Tsunekichi boiler
Praise for the Takuma boiler grew, and production value approached 10 million yen, unadjusted for inﬂation. Buoyed bybrisk sales of his ﬁrst invention, Tsunekichi founded Tsunekichi Takuma Institute at his home in June 1936 and set out
inventing a new boiler. He dubbed the premium, compact boiler that resulted from his effort the Tsunekichi boiler. Easy tooperate, faster-starting than other boilers of the time with the same steam volume, and capable of running on about 30% lessfuel, the new design earned broad praise. Faced with the need to put in place a system capable of producing the boiler,
Tsunekichi incorporated his institute as a joint-stock company in July 1937, creating the Takuma Institute Co., Ltd. Thegroundwork for the boiler-inventing business that Tsunekichi had long idealized had ﬁnally been laid.
As a result of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, Japan abruptly found itself embroiled in the Sino-JapaneseWar. As the war expanded, the Takuma Institute, which had been founded to carry out research into boilers, became caught up
in wartime production.

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Tsunekichi, who knew nothing about boilers, bought several specialized books on the subject and set about developing hisown design while drawing inspiration from designs that were famous overseas at the time, including Cornish boilers andBabcock boilers. Despite a sustained effort that was supported by Kumako, the process did not go as he had hoped.
But he didnʼt give up, instead retreating from prying eyes to Mt. Takatori in the city of Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture, where heimmersed himself in his research and pursued a series of hunches: that boilers were living things; that they used heat from coal toconvert water into steam; that the circulation of boiler water in order to create steam from water was instrumental to the life of theboiler; that the movement of boiler water was analogous to the circulation of blood in the human body; and that boilers to date
did not adequately provide the functionality of the human heart, because the part corresponding to the arteries was incomplete.
Tsunekichi tried to conduct experiments involving the circulation of boiler water, but he was unable to build a model due tothe difﬁculty of obtaining funding. Instead, he carried out experiments using a model he had made out of implements hefound in his kitchen, including pots, glass sake utensils, and a device used to toast sesame seeds. In the course of doing so, heestablished a theory of boiler water circulation. The water collector, which was the heart of the boiler, and the downcomer
tubes, which were its arteries, together comprised the distinguishing characteristics of the Takuma boiler and were inventions
that were unknown in the water tube-type boilers of the day. In this way, Tsunekichi patented the Takuma boiler in 1913 andset out to found a company so that he could supply his invention to the world.

A band performs to accompany the ﬁrst shipmentof the Tsunekichi Model A boiler.

Schematic drawing of the Tsunekichi Model A boiler

The history of Tsunekichi and Takuma

Establishment of Takuma Boiler Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and adoption of the company motto

In April 1914, Tsunekichi exhibited his Takuma boiler at the 2nd Invention
Expo in Osaka, where he won the gold prize. It was the ﬁrst time for theexceptional nature of the invention to be recognized in a public setting,prompting inquiries from all quarters as the inventor began work tocommercialize his product.
Eager to capitalize on the newfound opportunity, Tsunekichi enlisted thesupport of Dr. Masao Kamo of Tokyo Imperial University and signed a sales
contract with Takada Shokai that November, prompting sales to growsmoothly. The following year, he established Takuma Boiler Company toprotect his patent rights.
The superiority of the Takuma boiler was proven in a capacity test carried outby Kyoto Imperial University in 1919, pitting the design against the Babcock
sectional boiler, a design from the Babcock & Wilcox Company in England that
had earned worldwide renown. Results showed that the Takuma design bested
its British counterpart in terms of both steam volume and thermal efﬁciency.
The company began selling Takuma boilers in Manchuria in 1924 and in
Taiwan in 1926. At the time, sugar reﬁneries in Taiwan were looking for ahigh-efﬁciency boiler that burned bagasse (a ﬁbrous product left over after
sugarcane is pressed). When performance tests carried out by sugar reﬁneriesin Taiwan and other sugar plants made it clear that Takuma boilers excelled at
this task, the company experienced a surge of inquiries. Between 1930 and1932, it delivered dozens of boilers to the market.
In November 1928, Tsunekichi was awarded the Fifth Class Order of theSacred Treasure by Emperor Hirohito in recognition of his contribution to newindustry. In addition, he was named as one of the Meiji and Taisho periodsʼ 10
greatest Japanese inventors in December 1930. He was 58 years old at the time.

Takuma Boiler Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the forerunner of todayʼs Takuma, was founded in the city of Amagasaki in Hyogo
Prefecture in June 1938 to boost the instituteʼs production capacity. The new company absorbed the Takuma Institute thatDecember. Tsunekichi served as the companyʼs ﬁrst president and formulated its motto of “Service to the nation through boilermanufacturing.” Founded on the idea of contributing to society and the environment through the manufacture of boilers, thephilosophy captures the dedication of Tsunekichi, who poured his heart and soul into inventing the ﬁrst water tube-type boiler
to be produced in Japan, and it continues to serve as the foundation of Takuma and the Takuma Groupʼs management
philosophy today.
Takuma Steam Power Construction Co., Ltd., was founded in March 1939 to install and operate boilers, and the companyʼsTokyo Ofﬁce was spun off in September 1941 to form Tokyo Steam Power Construction Co., Ltd., (todayʼs SUNPLANT Co.,Ltd.). The result was a three-part business that added installation to boiler research and manufacturing.

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A share of Takuma Boiler Manufacturing Co., Ltd.,
stock at the time the company was founded

The company emblem, whose design
incorporates Takumaʼs three-part business

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Tsunekichiʼs later years

As they manufacture boilers to deliver to Takumaʼs plant under a rigorous quality control system, veteran employees andyoung workers at the Harima Plant work together to master and pass on technologies in accordance with the same philosophy
that has guided us since our founding.

A sesame-toasting device used in boiler water circulation
experiments along with a corresponding sketch

Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays
with Rosette (junior ﬁfth rank)

Passing on boiler manufacturing technology and dedication at the Harima Plant

Feature: "TheKing of Boilers"

Tsunekichi worked hard as the president of Takuma Boiler Manufacturing Co., Ltd., until he resigned from the position inMay 1941 at the age of 69 due in part to his advancing age. He gave the post to Yoshisaburo Fujita, with whom he had shared
many joys and sorrows since before the founding of the company, and became chairman, in which capacity he watched overthe company during the chaos of World War II and its aftermath. He continued in that role after the death of his wife Kumako
at age 82 in March 1947 until passing away at age 81 on December 22, 1953.
On January 14, 1954, one month after his death, Tsunekichi was posthumously awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure,Gold Rays with Rosette, for his contributions to the development of Japanese industry through his boiler business. The
company still has the award itself along with the sesame seed toaster and sketches he used in his experiments with boiler
water circulation and a coat worn by his wife, treasured artifacts of its history.

●Sources

Autobiography of Tsunekichi Takuma: From His Personal Background to the Takuma Boiler (2005), Takuma Co., Ltd.
Fifty Years of Takuma (1989), Takuma Co., Ltd.
Great Inventors of Japan (1943), Michio Matsudaira, Kinnohoshisha
Life of an Inventor: The King of Boilers, Tsunekichi Takuma (1940), Tadashi Kawamura, Fujokaisha■ Afterword
Ryo Inaba, General Affairs Department, Corporate Services Division

The Harima Plant at the time of its construction (left), and the same plant today (right)

Tsunekichi set out on his path to invention as a layperson who knew almost nothing about boilers and went on to invent theTakuma boiler as well as the Tsunekichi boiler. Boiler manufacturing technology has placed an essential role in facilitating thedevelopment of these boilers down to the present day by making it possible to manufacture the boilers invented and designed
by Tsunekichi without sacriﬁcing their quality and to deliver them to customers via a rigorous quality control system. No
matter how exceptional Tsunekichiʼs designs, it would not be possible to earn customersʼ trust without the ability to actuallybuild them, and the inventorʼs own experience led him to pay close attention to this aspect of the companyʼs operations.
The Harima Plant, which was established in December 1942 by Tsunekichi to implement his ideal of “Service to the nation
through boiler manufacturing,” continues to operate today as one of Takumaʼs boiler manufacturing facilities. Many of theboiler manufacturing technologies that comprise the companyʼs core competence ﬁnd expression in the skills of the plantʼsengineers, and we consider passing on and further developing those skills to be essential priorities.

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Although the word inventor calls to mind an image of someone who embraces the mission of creation
at a young age and then ﬁnds success, Tsunekichi Takuma set out to invent the boiler around the time
he turned 40, when he was a lumber merchant. The boiler and incineration technologies into which
this unusual person poured his heart and soul live on as core technologies of the company today. I
hope that this feature has given you a better understanding of the source of Tsunekichi Takumaʼspassion for boilers as the “King of Boilers.”

Chiyo Inoue, Manager, General Affairs Department, Corporate Services Division
What kind of person was Tsunekichi Takuma? He was full of curiosity and the will to study as a child,and he struggled with a desire to accomplish something with his life as a youth. A reading of hisautobiography reveals an energetic journey over the course of which he developed a strong desire tocontrol nature while experiencing numerous challenges and failures and making the impossible,possible. In the episodes of his life that were not include in the autobiography you can ﬁnd the same
sort of human drama that characterizes life during other eras, including times of happiness andsadness through friendship, love, betrayal, trust, disappointment, and hope. It turns out that theportrait of the old man with which employees are familiar points to a passionate spirit who lived 100years ago.

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