Message from Humidification Division’s Management
History of our humidification system development
Throughout our corporate history, we have endeavored to eliminate all problems arising from dryness in production facilities. This goal is far from easy, and we have faced a vast number of daunting challenges in our pursuits. However, it is thanks to these numerous challenges that we have earned the trust of users in so many different fields and become more useful as a company.
Our hard work has resulted in the successful development of spray nozzles capable of producing fine fogs similar to the delicate haze and mist encountered in nature. AKIJet® nozzles, for example, which have been patented in countries around the world, have achieved steady sales over the years.
We later developed and initiated sales of AKIMist®, a line of humidifiers which at first (in their separate, non-system-integrated form) were equipped with the outstanding AKIJet® nozzles yet were unable to properly utilize the capabilities of those nozzles due to problems such as clogging.
A new hope: The driving force behind our comeback
When we were on the verge of throwing in the towel, we met with the executive director of a major printing company, who offered me some helpful advice:
"You must take full responsibility for the achievement of perfect, 100% performance results and the long-term sustainment of such performance, by any user no matter where they operate. It's not enough to merely sell humidifiers; you have to provide the entire system. Furthermore, you should take pride in the fog your products create, because I have never seen such spectacular fog produced by any other product."
These words gave us the motivational boost we needed to keep trying.
After thoroughgoing analysis of nationwide water quality and composition, research on precise humidity control and other such efforts, we successfully developed the industrial humidification system AirAKI®, which was sold not as a standalone product but as an integrated humidification system package encompassing everything from customer worksite measurements and system design through to production, installation, test runs and other services as necessary.
AirAKI® immediately met with widespread praise as a revolutionary humidification system, and despite its high price tag it was adopted by customers in a diverse range of industries, helping us achieve healthy sales figures and provide a truly useful company product.
The advantages of knowing our customers
For the next decade, we focused more strongly on getting to know our customers. Customers require a high humidity for a diverse range of different purposes.Static electricity prevention is a major focus because static electricity alone can lead to a wide variety of different problems.
In the printing industry, for example, each printing technology features distinct types of equipment, printed media and so forth, and in response we pursue in-depth research into the plethora of different problems that can occur. Today, this same industry employs our varied and highly diverse humidification systems suited to each kind of printing machines such as sheetfed offset printing, web offset printing, rotogravure printing, newspaper rotary printing, sticker printing and more.
Additionally, front-end and back-end processes in the field of IC, semiconductor and LCD manufacturing require various target humidity levels, nozzle spray positions, and spraying methods. Completely different and unique humidification systems including control units are also used in automotive manufacturing processes such as vehicle electrical components production, mounting, assembly, and painting/coating processes.
Our goal is to eliminate all the problems our customers face, no matter the field or industry in which they operate.
system AirULM®
Currently, we are focusing our research and development efforts on lowering both initial and operating costs for all humidification-related operations.
We have developed humidification equipment that uses smaller amounts of compressed air, and we have even succeeded in making equipment that doesn't use any air at all.
Moving forward, we will continue making advances as we contribute to improved humidity control in the production processes in a wide range of industries so that customers can focus on tasks more central to their operations.
Kyoichi NISHIKAWA, Deputy General Manager,
Humidification Division
