R&D Spirits
Creating Environmental Businesses Using a New
Product Commercialization Method
Tatsuya Kunioka
Senior Research Engineer, Senior Manager,
Environmental Assessment Systems Group
Environmental Information Systems Project
NTT Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories

The Environmental Assessment Systems Group at NTT Energy and Environment Systems
Laboratories is introducing a new R&D management method to get research results out into theworld in a form that meets market needs. The first product to be developed by this method iscreating quite a sensation in the USA and large-volume sales began there in July. What is thisproduct that so impressed the US Environmental Protection Agency? And where did the idea
for it come from? We put these questions to senior research engineer, senior manager Tatsuya
Kunioka, who, as team leader, has been the driving force behind this product.

Introducing a new R&D management
method and expanding product development
according to needs—Mr. Kunioka, please outline your current work forus.
My job is to refine and market the results of R&Dfrom NTT Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories as products that can be useful to society while
also generating a profit for NTT. Of course, this is not
something that can be done by just one person, so, for
any one product, a team of specialists from various
fields must be formed. My role here is to organize
separate entities into a unified project.
At present, the project receiving the most attention
in the Environmental Assessment Systems Group, towhich I belong, is the commercialization of an ozone
sampler. Based on decolorizing reactions caused byexposure to ozone, this product makes continuous
measurements of ozone concentration in the immediate environment. It features a sensor with a special
dye immersed into a filter paper having a large effective surface area. This product has already been commercialized under the name of “M’s Ozone Discovery,” and large-volume sales have been under way
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since July in the USA, a country with an advanced
environmental-business field. Moreover, in April, an
NTT liaison office called the Energy and Environment Office (E&E) was opened in Wisconsin in theUSA. As one of the principals concerned, I visit that
office every two months to attend meetings and gather information.
—How can M’s Ozone Discovery be of use to society?
M’s Ozone Discovery is considered to be very
effective in highlighting and enabling the preventionof the ill effects of ozone, which has become an issueof concern in recent years. Although ozone was originally thought to be harmless except in high concentrations, research conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed that, evenat low concentrations, ozone may cause irreversible
damage to the lungs. Since ozone has strong sterilizing and deodorizing properties, it has come to be frequently used as a substitute for chlorine in the daily
operations of hotels, hospitals, and other establishments and in fields like the distribution of perishable
foods. The use of ozone in such activities is not, in
itself, a problem. However, if the exposure region
extends beyond the target items and affects workers,
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R&D Spirits

that is a serious problem. In the USA, the EPA and the
Occupational Safety & Health Administration havebeen establishing safety standards and promoting
greater awareness and countermeasures. But despite
the establishment of safety standards, no high-performance and inexpensive measurement devices wereavailable for use in such countermeasures. That iswhat led us to develop M’s Ozone Discovery.
—How did the project itself begin?
The Environmental Assessment Systems Grouphas been conducting research on a variety of substances in the atmosphere for some time. Research onozone began in 2002, before I arrived at the Energy
and Environment Systems Laboratories. The technology for detecting ozone using a special dye wasdeveloped by senior research engineer Dr. Yasuko
Yamada Maruo, who, with great foresight, began
research in this field at these laboratories. At that time, however, no goodmeans of developing this technology
for the market could be seen. It wasfor this reason that I was chosen toturn this technology into a viable
product using my experience in newenvironmental businesses [1].

IAC is a management method proposed by Francis
Kohno, an expert in business administration [2]. As
shown in Fig. 1, it has three main elements: 1) a
“cross-functional system” in which specialists fromthe six fields—technology, manufacturing, marketing, finance, legal, and human resources—share theirknowledge; 2) “repetition” in which the cross-functional team develops an idea by discussing andresearching it and deriving and verifying a hypothesis and then repeating this process as many times asneeded; and 3) “recommendation” in which theresults are delivered directly to the highest management layer.
We ourselves are well equipped in the fields oftechnology and human resources, but we sorely lackspecialists in fields like manufacturing and marketing. Accordingly, in introducing the IAC method, I
sought the cooperation of various entities and formed
a team that came to include NTT Advanced TechnolFinance
Manufacturing

Internal

Legal

Audit &
Technology

Consulting

Human resources

Marketing—What are some of the outstanding
features of this product development?
Technically speaking, the greatest
feature is the development throughbasic research of a special chemical
substance whose color fades when
exposed to ozone. Another importantfeature is the formation of a productby immersing that substance in filter
paper instead of a porous glass in thecommercialization stage. Actually,
the ozone active sensor that we developed before this project is completely
different from today’s product. It waselectronically driven and about one
third the size of a standard box of tissues. The change from this configuration to today’s badge format resulted
from the introduction of the Internal
Audit and Consulting (IAC) management method into NTT Energy andEnvironment Systems Laboratories. I
believe that this is another very
important feature of this productdevelopment.
Vol. 4 No. 8 Aug. 2006(a) Cross-functional system of the ‘IAC’ (© Francis Kohno)

Discussion

Research

Discussion

Hypothesis

Verification

Repetition(b) Brainstorming by IAC cross-functional team
Color chart (round)

Ozone-detection paper(center)(c) Ozone passive sampler born in the IAC (mock up)

Fig. 1. Management methodology ‘IAC’.

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R&D Spirits

ogy and Mr. Kohno himself (Fig. 2). NTT Advanced
Technology, by the way, is the company that works toturn research results into products within the NTT
Group.
During the course of the project, we came to realizethat ozone was receiving a lot of attention in the USA.
We therefore discussed how to market the ozone sampler in the USA. These discussions gave birth to the
hypothesis that a simple, non-electronic sampler in abadge-like format might be the best way to go. From
this idea, we eventually arrived at the form of today’s
product. If we had not made use of the IAC management method, this excellent research achievement ofdetecting ozone by using a special dye might still bestuck in the laboratory.
—How do you see this technology developing threeand five years down the road?
First, with regard to M’s Ozone Discovery, the factthat it’s a product well matched to American needs
leads us to forecast widespread penetration within a
few years. We also envision a larger lineup of ozone
samplers customized for individual users and applications. For example, ozone samplers could be aimed
at various ozone-detection levels, or they could bemade to conform to waterproof specifications for use
by water departments or made to withstand theeffects of ultraviolet rays for outdoor use. We also
might expand the target of detection beyond ozone.
For the future, moreover, we plan to apply this IACbased product commercialization method to otherresearch items within NTT Energy and Environment
Systems Laboratories. We therefore expect tobecome increasingly adept at this method as the number of application examples grows. Of course, oureventual goal is to write up our know-how in a manual. We expect to reach the first stage toward that end
in about three years.

Using the high praise received in the USA asa step toward a world standard—Please tell us about R&D trends in the world similar to the ozone sampler and the part that NTT is
playing.
We are now seeing much research throughout theworld on the measurement of toxic substances. Competition is therefore strong, but I think we can say that
NTT is quite advanced. NTT’s ozone-targeting product, in particular, is world class. Similar products doexist in the USA, but there are three major differences
between them and M’s Ozone Discovery. The first is
accuracy. While existing products have an accuracyof ±30–50%, our product achieves an accuracy of±10%. The second difference is safety. We use indigo, a vegetable dye, as the main component in M’s
Ozone Discovery, and all the other components aresubstances that are allowed to be used in food additives. The third difference is ease of use. The shelf lifeof existing products with unbroken seals is threemonths in cold storage while that of M’s Ozone Discovery is guaranteed to be six months at room temCustomers
(USA)

Sales

Ozone sampler project

Business consulting firm
Francis Kohno(Japan)NTT Energy
and Environment
Office (USA)

Selling agent(USA)

Wholesale
IAC
team
NTT Energy
and Environment
Systems Laboratories(Japan)Customers’ needs and wants
Sole distributor(research and design company)

Manufacturer

Technology
transfer

NTT Advanced
Technology(Japan)Wholesale(USA)

Fig. 2. Business formation for the ozone sampler project.

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R&D Spirits

perature with enhancements for extending this to 12
months now in the works. To date, there has been noother product as advanced as M’s Ozone Discovery(Fig. 3).
—How have these achievements been received outside NTT?
In addition to describing M’s Ozone Discovery as
an amazing product, the EPA has offered to collaborate with us in our research. They also mentioned thatthey wished to distribute M’s Ozone Discovery toelementary schools for trial environmental education
and we were happy to provide several hundred samples free of charge for that purpose. Receiving offers
such as these from specialists in the USA, the mostenvironmentally conscious country in the world, isvery gratifying for us. We have also been receiving
many inquiries from exclusive agencies in the USA.
They fall into three groups. The first group uses
ozone in business operations and includes distribution companies. The second group produces ozone asa byproduct of business operations and includes
power plants and factories that perform arc welding.
And the third group, while not directly related toozone, is involved in environmental activities as aform of corporate social responsibility (CSR). So
each of these groups has its own objectives and stancewith regard to ozone, which demonstrates to us thepossibility of diverse business models. Our objective
is to meet all kinds of needs as far as possible.

—Are you involved in joint research with any
research institutions in Japan or abroad?
Well, as we have already made our passive ozone
sampler into a product, we are not involved in any
joint research in this area. But for other research
items, we are moving forward on collaboration invarious forms. For example, we are working on academic and personnel exchanges with the Universityof Wisconsin-Platteville, where our E&E office islocated. In February of this year, we began to offer its
students research fellowships at our laboratories, andin the future, we would like to expand this exchange
program to include researchers as well. Finally, within Japan, we are exploring collaborative researchwith the National Institute for Environmental Studies
and other institutions.
—What about standardization and other international activities?
Right now, we’re not involved in any special activities in academic societies, committees, or the like,but in terms of standardization, we would like tomake M’s Ozone Discovery a world-wide de facto
standard based on its designation as an EPA authorized product. EPA approval in the USA is widely
regarded as being equivalent to an official guarantee
in many countries around the world. For this reason,
we look forward to collaborating with the EPA, as I
mentioned earlier.

Color chart
Features of the badge

Ozone-detection paper (strip)

1. Sensitivity
The sensitivity can be tailored to meet a customer’s request.
The current product is set to fade from blue to white after 8 hours of
exposure at 80 ppb.
2. Accuracy
Accuracy is ±10% at 20°C, 40% relative humidity.
3. Safety
The main ingredient is indigo blue, a dye that is widely used for jeans.
The other ingredients are also safe materials.
4. Stability
The shelf life is 6 months at room temperature.

Fig. 3. NTT’s ozone passive sampler “M’s Ozone Discovery”.

Vol. 4 No. 8 Aug. 2006

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R&D Spirits

Three years of experience on the businessside becomes a personal turning point in an
R&D career—Mr. Kunioka, what was your major at university?
What was your motivation for entering NTT?
My university major was electrical engineering,and I researched fuzzy-control applications. For
example, I researched ways of representing on a computer the know-how of experienced operators of hotblast stoves in iron works and container cranes in port
facilities, and ways of automating that know-how.
This research provided me with the opportunity ofcollaborating with the corporate world, and the software that I developed actually came to be used at asteel manufacturing plant in Taiwan. As for enteringNTT, I wanted to pursue basic research at the originof control engineering. Most people associate theword “control” with machines like robots and airplanes, but in actuality, the foundations of control
engineering were laid by Bell Laboratories in their
original speech-waveform correction technology forlong-distance calling. For myself, as a student of control engineering, the research laboratories of atelecommunication carrier feel like home.
—What R&D themes have you been involved with up
to now?
Although I entered NTT with the idea of doing
basic research, I was first assigned to NTT LSI Laboratories. At that time, there was a scarcity of engineers in the field of ultraprecise machines for LSI
manufacturing, and I was originally involved in thedevelopment of electron-beam drawing equipment. I
also got hands-on experience with vacuum-compatible, non-magnetic, precision XY stages, vacuumcompatible transport equipment, and vacuum-compatible exhaust systems. With regard to precision XY
stages, we developed a large-scale, vacuum-compatible, completely non-magnetic precision-stage system based on an ultrasonic linear motor drive andtransferred this technology to a manufacturer. This
manufacturer, by the way, received the Nikkan
Kogyo Shimbun’s Best Ten New Products Prize inJanuary 2000 for this system. Then, as NTT decided
to wind up its LSI research projects, my research into
LSI manufacturing equipment likewise came to an
end. It was now time to select a new research theme,
and I decided that I would like to be transferred to
NTT East as deputy general manager of the Environmental Protection Office. Here, under the direction of
Shunzo Morishita, the foremost authority on the envi10

ronment in the NTT Group and now the president of
NTT West, I drafted environmental measures andenvironmental reports and worked on acquiring ISO
14001 certification for a period of three years. I also
served in company-wide management positions andheaded the founding of the first comprehensive environmental consulting firm in the NTT Group called
NTT GP-ECO. These activities taught me how to see
things from a broad perspective, and it was also during this time that I encountered the IAC management
method for the first time.
In 2004, I returned to NTT Laboratories, andthough I was in a position to return to LSI-related
research to establish some continuity with my priorresearch, my interesting encounters with environmental themes in my work at NTT East persuaded me tochoose the Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories as a new stage in my career. Here, I was placedin charge of R&D for a 3D atmospheric environment
simulator and the assembling of an IAC team to promote the creation of businesses dealing with environmental sensors. Since the summer of last year, I havebeen working exclusively on IAC-related matters.
—What issues are you dealing with now?
That would be the establishment of a product commercialization method appropriate for NTT Laboratories and the training of personnel in that method.
Having a person working full time in a role like mine
is a first at NTT Energy and Environment Systems
Laboratories. And in contrast to research laboratories
at manufacturing companies, we tend to be undermanned in terms of people that can handle manufacturing and sales functions. Under these circumstances, human resources become very important insetting up a cross functional system. For this reason,
I would like to become actively involved in procuringmarketing specialists from outside NTT Laboratories
and in cultivating talented people for management
roles based on IAC.

Recognizing NTT for its environmental
expertise—one engineer’s ultimate dream—What is the future direction for your current work?
My goal with respect to M’s Ozone Discovery is tomake it a hit product throughout the world. Once it
becomes a success in the USA, we must expand it toEuropean markets and even reverse-import it toJapan. That’s the scenario that I have in mind. I’m
also thinking of expanding the product lineup, and tothat end, I am working on expanding our commerNTT Technical Review

R&D Spirits

cialization and marketing capabilities. In this regard,
a common pattern that can be found in product development at a research laboratory is to issue one modeland then be done with it! Compare this with videogame manufacturers that are frequently issuing
upgrades or coming out with hand-held versions ofgame devices. It is important that we continuously
explore ways of applying and expanding the resultsof our research. I believe that creating such a productpipeline is one of my duties.
—What is the advantage of NTT Laboratories from apersonal perspective?
NTT Laboratories is a place where researchers candevote their energies to something that is truly important to society even if their work may not bring forth
results soon. To give some background, the trend inrecent years has been to quickly curtail or discontinue research that encounters problems in commercialization. Even research related to the environment hascome to be affected by this trend. Researchers, on theother hand, feel that there is merit in working on technology that may rescue the planet 10 years down theroad even if it does not generate money right now. Of
course, my colleagues and I also expect research
results directly related to business, so we are no
exception to this trend. Nevertheless, NTT
researchers are given the freedom to pursue basic
research in a relaxed and unrushed manner, and there
is no other place like NTT Laboratories that exhibits
this level of understanding.
—What is your ultimate dream as a researcher?
Actually, I have two. The first is to enhance the status of the Energy and Environment Systems Laboratories. I am often asked why NTT has laboratories devoted to the environment. The fact is, NTT is known firstand foremost as a telecommunication carrier, and perhaps that cannot be helped. But as far as I’m concerned, I would like the name “NTT” to be associatedwith the environment more than with telephony. I
would like the environmental expertise of NTT to berecognized by both academia and the general public.
My other dream is somewhat whimsical, but I am
contemplating a business model that would enable
researchers to become millionaires. In the USA, successful researchers can become millionaires as a matter of course. I believe that there are many superb
researchers at NTT that have achieved results just as
worthy as those of these millionaire researchers.
Unfortunately, there are still no researchers here thathave become millionaires. To provide even more
Vol. 4 No. 8 Aug. 2006

motivation in research, wouldn’t a business modelthat allows for millionaire creation be a good idea?
—Mr. Kunioka, please leave us with a message foryoung researchers.
Certainly. After taking on a management role, I’ve
had more opportunities to talk with young researchers
during meetings on research planning and the like. I
would have to say that they are much more talented
than my generation of researchers. However, when thetime comes for me to set research assignments, there
are many young researchers that don’t know what
they want to do. This is really unfortunate. So insteadof simply agreeing to the research theme given tothem at the location decided for them after they enter
the company, I would like to see young researchers
make clear what it is they themselves want to do andwork aggressively toward convincing their superiorsof their desires. Both management and the personnel
department understand very well that it is best to allow
a researcher to work on something that he or she really wants to do, so it is important to express one’s will.
References[1]

Y. Y. Maruo and T. Kunioka, “Ozone Sensor and Sampler,” NTT
Technical Review, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 33-36, 2006.

[2]

Francis Kohno, “Turn Over,” Kodansha, 2005 (in Japanese).

Interviewee profile■ Career highlights
He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in electricalengineering from Waseda University, Tokyo, in 1985
and 1987, respectively. He joined NTT LSI Laboratories, Kanagawa, in 1987 and engaged in research on a
precision mechanical system for an electron beam lithography system, spending most of the time in developing a precision non-magnetic XY-stage using an
ultrasonic linear motor for use in a vacuum. He wastransferred to the Environmental Protection Office,
NTT East, Tokyo, in 2001 and was responsible for theentire environmental protection management in NTT
East. In particular, he promoted the adoption of life
cycle assessment (LCA) of the telecommunication
network with NTT Energy and Environment Laboratories. He was also involved in setting up a new environmental consulting firm, NTT GP-ECO, and evaluating environmental business models. In 2004, hemoved to NTT Energy and Environment Laboratories,
Kanagawa, and is currently responsible for promoting
business related to ozone sensing technology in North
America.

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