FOREWORD

The Direction of JTEKT Product Development

Hiroyuki MIYAZAKI
Executive Director, Member of the Board

JTEKT is developing multiple businesses in the fields
of automotive parts, bearings and machine tools andmechatronics, aiming to be "a company that contributes
to the happiness of people and the abundance of society
through product manufacturing that wins the trust ofsociety."
The basis of business development is technologies andproducts which respond adequately to the needs of thecustomer and the market.
Up until now, we have challenged ourselves in thedevelopment of leading technology by furthering thefundamental technology cultivated by the bearings
business and machine tools business, along withsystemizing technology from the steering and driveline
businesses, and furthermore, by fusing these technologies.
For example, the core of our automotive parts business,
electric power steering and electronic control coupling,
have designs with high reliability towards customer needs
such as "Comfort and Convenience", "Environment andEfficiency", and "Safety and Security." We work to evolve
our products for these needs using frontline machining
technologies applicable to technology for high-levelcontrol.
Hereafter as well, we will continue to exert thecollective power of the JTEKT Group to further expand
the basic technology of countless fields including
tribology, material development, heat treatment, precision
machining, electronic control and more, and promote
new products and innovations in monozukuri . The
JTEKT Group works towards the expansion of business
spectrums, strengthening efforts towards the five fieldsof mobility, infrastructure, energy, life and factory, whileremoving borders within production. The field of Mobility
pursues compactness, lightness and low friction in regard
to the shift to EV and FCV, and promotes the evolution
into a general automotive parts maker through the fusionof peripheral components, plans for modularization, andexpansion of control technologies. Infrastructure involves

JTEKT ENGINEERING JOURNAL English Edition No. 1011E (2014)

expanding the high efficiency and high reliability oftechnologies cultivated within automotives to industrial
equipment; this field aims to broaden services for unit
product proposals and predictive breakage diagnosis.
The Energy field takes part in planning smart grids andproposing environment-responsive products for powergenerating equipment used in wind power, etc. The Life
field involves unit product proposals for and the expansionof medical equipment, sensor technologies for robots,and pioneering machining technologies. In addition, theFactory field proposes a total system of evolved machine
tools, element equipment, and control technology, andpromotes the expansion of future business through theevolution into energy-saving, ecological "smart" factories.
This year's JTEKT ENGINEERING JOURNAL
was created as a feature issue on technologies related
to compactness and weight saving. However, theseconcepts are not merely product developments for energy
conservation; they help improve design freedom ofperipheral components, and are created with the goal ofexpanding application to further societal contribution.
We are gradually seeing signs that indicate a departurefrom the global economic recession and the disorder
within the Japanese economy. JTEKT is working
diligently to accelerate and perfect the development ofvaluable technologies and products, striving towards
our corporate philosophy of being a "company thatcontributes to society."1