Introduction

Intellectual Capital
Active promotion of international standardization activities

Related materialities

Major sustainability KPIs (FY2025)

Safety, ANSHIN, and well-being

Realize the optimum environment for both humans and machines to resolve
various societal challenges and make it possible to achieve healthy, happy,
and vigorous lives.

Developing safety personnel
level to commit to human resource training, to formulate andimplement rules such as standards and norms, and to realize
well-being.
For this reason, IDEC is reinforcing its intellectual capital bypromoting various initiatives from the four aspects of Technology,
People, Rulemaking, and Management.

Technology

Reaching out to the world
through international
standardization andrulemaking

P.21

PeopleEnsuring safety at workby promoting
safety management
P.43

Qualification attesting to the level of safety knowledge
and designing competency for technical staff(As of April 2023)

Qualifications of knowledge and competence inoccupational safety management for administrative staff
Number of employees qualified as Safety Officers

IDEC Report 2023

560
peopleNumber of employees qualified as Safety Assessors,
Safety Basic Assessors and Robot Safety Assessors

Data

Taking to a higher levelsafety at work throughthe development ofsafety personnel

Management

To ensure safety of manufacturing and safety promotions basedon international safety standards, IDEC encourages employees
to obtain safety qualifications and pays for the cost of taking
examinations and renewing the certification.
As a result, we have the highest number of qualified personof Safety Lead Assessors in Japan, which is the highest level of
personnel certification for machinery safety. We also encourage
employees to obtain the Robot Safety Assessor certification,
which certifies that they are qualified to possess basic robot
safety knowledge, and the Safety Officer certification, which
certifies management personnel for their knowledge ofoccupational safety management and their ability to perform it.
We provide safety consulting services that aim to achieve both
safety and productivity, such as supporting risk assessments andproposing and developing risk reduction measures at industrial
workplaces, utilizing our extensive experience in manufacturing
and our advanced knowledge of safety.

Governance

Rulemaking

Creating workplaces
around the world
where workers feel wellrewarded and satisfied

Creating well-being at
work around the world
with IDEC’s safety and
ANSHIN technologies

Number of cumulative employees holding safety
qualification 3% increase from the previous year

Foundation For Value
Creation

Since our founding, IDEC has supplied society with a variety
of products and services with control technology at its core as
a company that develops and provides products that protect
human life. In order to realize a society in which everyone canlive healthy, happy, and full of life, it is important not only on thetechnical aspects to supply products with high performance,ease of use, and stable quality, but also on the management

 umulative attendees of safety & explosion protection
Cseminars 5% increase from the previous year

Business Strategy

Improvesafety, productivity, and well-being through technology development,
human resource development, management, and rulemaking.

Activities to ensure well-being beyond safety

Value Creation Story

In industrial fields where new technological developments such as ICT and collaborative robots are advancing in addition
to market globalization, realizing a safe working environment that leaves no one left behind has become a pressing societal
concern. We make positive impacts toward the realization of a safety, ANSHIN, well-being, and sustainable society bysolving societal challenges through the formation of social rules, including the development of human resources to support
safety and international standardization activities.

113
peopleIntellectual Capital

37

Examples of specific activities

Intellectual Capital

IEC standardization activities

1,624

1,733

40,09920192020

42,328

2021

1,904

45,554

2022

1,970

49,6342023 (FY)

Activities to create new rules and mechanisms
such as international standards and certifications
for people, products, and services.

Strategic proactivity
approach

Activities to take the initiative in changing orrevising existing international standards in orderto gain an advantage in certification, or to utilize
revised information on international standards
obtained proactively and ahead of othercompanies for business purposes.

Passive reaction
approach

Activities conducted when necessary, such as
checking conformity with laws and regulations
and published international standards andcertification-related work, in order to conduct
market research and determine specifications
for new development, renewal development, anddesign modification of existing product groups.

The IDEC Group’s safety training plan
Basic safety training

FY2020
Basic safety training

For all IDEC Group
employees in Japan

 dvanced safety
A
training

For sales department
employees in Japan

Basic safety training

For executives of our Suzhou
factory in China

Basic safety training

For executives of ourfactories in Thailand andTaiwanFY2021
FY2022
FY2023-IDEC Report 2023

For all IDEC employees

400,000
Shipment of robots in the world
Shipment of IDEC enabling devices

200,000
0

2001

2006

2011

2016

2021

(FY)

ISO standardization activities
IDEC has been participating in the working group for the technicalcommittee on robot safety to develop the ISO 10218 series ofinternational standards relating to the safety of various industrial
robots including collaborative robots, robot cells and their systems.
Due to the expansion of the automotive and semiconductor
industries, the automation of manufacturing and the increase inprocesses requiring the substitution of human labor because of
the decrease in working population, the use of industrial robots isincreasing worldwide. In line with this, there is a need for HMI andsafety-related products to ensure the safety of operations thatinvolve both humans and robots.
IDEC contributes to the development and revision of standards
with the product and safety knowledge it has accumulated throughthe supply of various HMI and safety-related products that are
effective in safety, ANSHIN, and well-being.
Intellectual Capital

38

Data

Strategic creation
approach

600,000

Governance

Types of international standardization activities in IDEC

800,000
Foundation For Value
Creation

In order to become a company that pursues and realizes thehighest level of safety, ANSHIN, and well-being in the world, we
provide safety training to all employees.
In FY2021, safety training was expanded to our groupcompanies in Japan, and in FY2022, safety training wasprovided to executives at our Suzhou factory in China, one ofour major overseas production sites. From FY2023 onward, weare expanding the scope of safety training to include executive
employees at our factories in Thailand and Taiwan.
In the safety training, participants learn about IDEC’ssafety history (DNA), safety concepts, safety products, andthe latest information such as Vision Zero and Collaborative
Safety / Safety2.0”, and also take a comprehension test after
the training to consolidate their knowledge.

Global robot and enabling device shipments (FY2001 - 2023)

Business Strategy

38,254

1,838

 umulative numberCof attendees
Cumulative numberof seminars held

Value Creation Story

Cumulative number of attendees andnumber of safety and explosion
protection seminars held (IDEC unconsolidated)

IDEC has been involved in the formation of social rules throughactive participation in international standardization activities.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, IDEC expanded its market
mainly by utilizing existing rules, but since the 1990s, IDEC has
actively participated in technical committees of IEC (International
Electrotechnical Commission) and ISO (International Organizationfor Standardization), proposing and promoting international safety
standards in response to new technological developments in the
global society. IDEC itself has been active in shaping the rules by
proposing and promoting the development of international safety
standards in response to new technological developments in the
global community. And since 2017, by focusing on activities tocreate rules based on new ideas such as Vision Zero and wellbeing, we aim to achieve our Purpose: “to create the optimal
environment for humans and machines, and to achieve safety,
ANSHIN, and well-being for people around the world.”
International standardization activities are defined in
the following three categories, and we have establisheda dedicated unit, the International Standardization and
Collaborative Safety Department, within our headquarters topromote a variety of activities.
Among the three categories, we are particularly focusing on“creative” and “proactive” international standardization activities,
which we advocate to the world with Japanese leadership. We arealso aiming for further growth of our business through continuous
human resource development through on-the-job training.

At the Advisory Committee on Safety (IEC ACOS), one of the six
technical advisory committees of the IEC, a Japanese representative
expert from IDEC introduced “Collaborative Safety / Safety2.0” andproposed the need to develop an IEC Guide on Collaborative Safety.
As a result, the development of the IEC Guide was approved in 2022,
and it is expected to be officially published in the near future after
voting by each national committee of IEC member body.
In addition to the above, IDEC has registered as an expert
in various international standardization committees, including
the control switch working group, and has participated in thedevelopment of international standards.
Through these activities, IDEC has made significant
contributions to the development of standards for 3-position
enabling devices, which have a global market share of over 90%,
and to the revision of standards for emergency-stop switches.
Cumulative shipments of enabling devices exceeded 6.3 million
units by FY2023, contributing to improved safety, ANSHIN, andwell-being not only at manufacturing sites but also at a wide rangeof sites in the construction industry and other various industries.

Introduction

In addition, various free safety seminars (online) from basic toadvanced and practical are provided to help customers use safetyrelated products and explosion protection products properly.

Resolving societal challenges throughsocial rulemaking

Toshihiro Fujita

Based on Dr. Fujita’s vision, IGSAP wasestablished to promote from Japan the conceptof Collaborative Safety / Safety2.0, which aims
to achieve both safety and productivity by
sharing information between human, machines,
and the environment using ICT, rather thanisolating human and machines. IGSAP is
actively promoting international standardization
activities related to safety.
After 2020, Dr. Fujita has served as one of
the six members of the Vision Zero Task Groupof the Global Coalition for Safety and Health atWork, which is led by the International Labor
Organization (ILO), a specialized agency of theUnited Nations. As the only
representative from Asia,
he is participating in thesafety, health, and wellbeing rulemaking activities.
He was appointed as
the person in charge ofpromoting the Vision ZeroIDEC Report 2023

Promoting activities
for the establishment of a personnel
qualification certification system
for machinery safety
and its international standardization
With the support and guidance of the METI at a
project of the Nippon Electric Control Equipment
Industries Association (NECA), Dr. Fujita proposedand developed the Safety Assessor (SA) program,which aims to train and certify personnel who
can safely design and operate machinery, andcontributed to establish this system.
In 2003, related industrial association
standards (NECA standards) were establishedand the JC was founded with the aim of becoming
a global certification body originating fromJapan and began operating the SA program in
2004, while promoting it globally. As a result of
adoption by the Official Development Assistance(ODA) program, etc., more than 25,000 persons
have been qualified under the SA program inJapan and other countries, including in seven

Promoting the international standardizationof ‘fine bubbles*’ from Japan
With the support of the METI, he established
the FBIA as a standardization organization andproposed to ISO to establish ISO/TC 281 (finebubble technology), in order to make fine bubble
technology a Japanese industry and create newmarkets. He led the publication of 15 Japaneseproposed international standards on definitions,
measurements and applications.
In Japan, he has also established acertification system that goes hand in hand withstandardization, achieving 31 certifications at theend of FY2022, and has contributed significantly
to the creation and growth of the fine bubble
industry by improving social recognition of finebubbles and creating an international standards
scheme for fine bubbles at the initiative of Japan.

Data

IDEC has developed a 3-position enabling device
that improves the safety of industrial robots,
one of the key industries in which Japanesecompanies hold 60% of the global market share,
and Dr. Fujita contributed to the developmentof the IEC standard for the 3-position enabling
device in 2006. The devices have been widelyused not only in Japan but also by overseas
manufacturers for safety operations of the robot,
and currently their global market share is morethan 90%.
Under his leadership, we led the revision of
the standard to include examples of applicationas safety devices not only for conventional robot
teaching devices, but also for machine tools,
construction machinery and others in 2020. This
revision has shown the devices to be effective
in many new fields, such as in many types ofequipment and construction sites, and has
contributed to ensuring worker safety in a variety
of workplaces where people and machinery
coexist.

Governance

Advocating Collaborative Safety /Safety2.0, a next-generation safetyconcept originating in Japan,
and announcing it globallycountries in Asia, contributing to ensure safetyat manufacturing sites both at home and abroad.
At IGSAP, in addition to the existing SA
program for engineers, a new Safety Officer (SO)program for managers has been established.
Adoption of this program in Japan and othercountries has helped to further reduce accidents.

Foundation For Value
CreationContributing to
the improvement of safety at workin a wide variety of applications,
including industrial robots

Summit Japan 2022 and contributed to thecompilation of the Tokyo
Declaration on Vision Zerofor All, the basis for the newmanifesto, which includes
collaborative safety, at thetime of the summit in May.

Business Strategy

Contributing to well-being that goes beyond safety,
for workplaces in the age of human-machine collaboration

Value Creation Story

Senior Executive Officer
Management of Technology

Introduction

ColumnIDEC had a bitter experience of losing market share because the international standard
for switches, one of its main products, was created at the initiative of foreign countries,
and the typical Japanese round hole for panel mounting of switches at that time wasout of the standard. From this experience, Dr. Toshihiro Fujita, Senior Executive Officer,
realized the importance of participating international standardization activities from Japan,
and has been making efforts to lead international standardization activities in Japanby visiting and interacting with many European and US companies, standardization
organizations, and certification bodies.
In order to promote international standardization activities originating in Japan, he has proposed and implemented
the establishment of Japan Certification Corporation (JC), the Fine Bubble Industry Association (FBIA), and the Institute of
Global Safety Promotion (IGSAP), and actively promoted new international standardization and rulemaking with the supportof the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
In 2022, he received the Prime Minister’s Commendation for Industrial Standardization from the METI for his significant
contribution to international standardization activities in Japan. The following is an overview of the main activities of the
project to this point.

* Fine bubbles are bubbles smaller than 100 µm (= 0.1 mm) in diameterand are expected to be used in a variety of industries.

Intellectual Capital

39