45Yokogawa 100th AnniversaryFor operators who were unfamiliar with CRTs, displays were modeled after conventional operator panels. This style was called a “virtual panel” and its originality and excellent design were highly evaluated. The virtual panel won several awards in Japan, including one from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Machine Industry in 1976.After the oil crisis, manufacturers were struggling to survive by shedding manpower and saving energy; CENTUM helped them by assuring safe, ecient, and stable operations. In December 1985, 10 years after its rst release, Yokogawa shipped the 1,000th CENTUM system. This proved that CENTUM was highly valued in the marketplace.Around this time, sales were boosted by the development of a car exhaust measuring instrument that helped assure compliance with environmental protection requirements, and by cooperation in the medical equipment business with General Electric (GE). As a result, Yokogawa, which had suered falling sales and income in scal year 1975, gradually recovered. By 1977, despite having had to furlough employees, the company was generating record-high orders and sales.Entering the Medical Equipment MarketIn December 1976, Yokogawa set up a CT Division and entered the medical equipment market in September 1977 by selling GE’s computerized X-ray transaxial tomography system (CT). Yokogawa recognized the high potential of this eld and aimed to make similar products in Japan. The business got o to a good start, and three GE gamma camera models and a vascular X-ray system were added to its product lineup in 1978 and 1979, respectively.The CT Division was renamed the Medical Equipment (ME) Division in 1980. After adding Yokogawa’s diagnostic ultrasound imaging system and full-body CT scanner to the product lineup, the ME Division achieved growth and was spun o in 1982 to form Yokogawa Medical Systems (YMS, currently GE Healthcare Japan), a joint venture with GE.Improving Financial StrengthIn those days, Yokogawa was slow to collect receivables and was shackled with excess inventory. Various eorts improved the collection of receivables, but reducing inventory required the restructuring of a system involving the manufacture of a wide variety of products in small quantities. Yokogawa decided to improve its information system rst, and then its production lines.In February 1975, Yokogawa installed the New Order Processing System (NOPS), and this was followed in December by the Production Information and Control System (PICS), which was suited to manufacturing a wide variety of products in small quantities. The two systems were then optimized to work together. Drawings, parts tables, and part numbers were systematized so that many manual operations could then be performed online dramatically improving speed and eciency.Yokogawa started overhauling production lines in 1978 and tested many things, including a just-in-time production system. In 1980, Yokogawa set a company-wide goal of halving production costs. In 1981, Yokogawa became a New Production System member and introduced the New Yokogawa Production System (NYPS) philosophy to reform all stages of work from designing to producing parts, assembling nished goods, and shipping, for total optimization. Operational eciency was improved greatly.The spread of NYPS was helped by the introduction of information processing systems: the COSMOS order processing system in 1982, the COSMOS–B (measurement) system in 1984, and the NYCE cost management system and the NICMOS procurement management system in 1985.Merger with Hokushin Electric WorksIn the 1980s, Yokogawa was trying to enter new markets outside Japan because the market for plant construction in Japan was expected to become saturated soon. In addition, general electrical equipment manufacturers with superior semiconductor/computer technologies and stronger nances were beginning to enter the industrial instrument market. Yokogawa consequently decided to merge with Hokushin Electric Works, the third-largest company in the Japanese industrial instrument market.Hokushin, which had been founded in 1919, had pioneered the production of industrial thermometers and process Car exhaust measuring instrument (CO/HC tester)Ceremony to mark the shipment of the 1,000th CENTUM systemYokogawa’s full-body CT scannerLaunch of NOPS
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