Yasuhisa Koki: Creative Power for New Medicine and Welfare Fields

Since it was founded in 1969, Yasuhisa Koki has been producing the prototypes and trial models that provide the foundation for new products. The company’s products, made on commission for companies and universities, cover everything from artificial hearts to tactile drawing pens for the visually impaired and foldable warning cones (“patacones”). Almost all these products mark new breakthroughs. By giving shape to ideas, the company’s unique work embodies Japanese innovation.

A single factory in a small-scale industrial zone in Tokyo’s Ōta Ward is hardly Silicon Valley. Yet the challenge to develop innovative new products is yielding impressive results in fields targeted by Japan’s new economic strategy, such as medicine and welfare. 

At first glance, the oil-stained workspaces inside Yasuhisa Koki look just like any other factory. A closer look reveals a red lump of what looks like flesh and blood left on a work surface. “This is a prototype artificial heart,” explains company president Tanaka Takashi.

“We’re taking part in a project organized by Waseda University. There’s a membrane inside the pump that uses air pressure to send out blood. Blood clots can cause a stroke or renal failure, so it’s vital to ensure that the blood flows smoothly. We need to be very careful about choosing the right materials, particularly with regard to the coatings used over the connections between different parts.”

Ensuring a smooth flow of blood is a matter of life and death. Yasuhisa Koki works steadily, making small improvements that edge the product ever closer to the exacting standards required by the university, all the while working hard to ensure safety. The university needs a product that is simple, accurate, and inexpensive. To help him meet these needs, the company president has a doctorate from Waseda University in artificial heart research. Prototypes that do not make the grade often have too many unnecessary options, making them expensive. Despite their cost, they often offer only low precision. A lack of study and research is to blame, says Tanaka, who believes that application and thoroughness are what determine the value of a product.

Achieving this kind of high value is not easy. Nothing speaks more eloquently of the difficulties involved than the sheer length of time Yasuhisa Koki spends on product development. The company spent more than 10 years developing the artificial heart. Turning the patacone into a viable product took five years, and the pen for visually impaired people was eight years in the making. The work involves a painstaking process of repeated trial and error. What does it feel like to engage in this kind of work?

But what drives the company to specialize in prototypes and trial models?

“The harsh reality is that large-scale orders tend to go to factories in the regions, where costs are cheaper. The advantage we have in the city is that it’s easier for us to build a network of relationships with universities and so on. By entering partnerships with these institutions, we can develop the trial models and prototypes that serve as the models for mass-produced goods. This is how we have managed to survive and grow as a company. We also have a network of more than 50 companies who process parts for us right here in Ōta Ward. We have a good idea of their respective strengths and weaknesses, and that enables us to work together to develop even better things.

“We have close relationships with many people and companies within walking distance of the factory. Someone might bring along a project they think we can handle. I’ll take a look and draw up plans for a trial product, and then allocate the work to whichever processing firm I think is best suited to that particular job. We are like a bridge between the end client and the processing company. It’s networks like this that have allowed us to build up our impressive stock of high technology.” 

In most businesses, a project like this would work in a top-down fashion: customer, company, contractors, subcontractor, and so on. This means that even if the processing company at the end of the chain has a good idea, it is not easy to act on it. But at Yasuhisa Koki, things work the other way round. Yasuhisa Koki is a networking company, taking the lead in local collaboration between industry and universities. This network continues to produce original products. One of the latest achievements is the company’s tactile drawing pen for visually impaired people. 

“It was an art teacher at Kagawa Prefectural Visually-Impaired School who first came up with the idea for the pen. But actually developing it into a viable product turned out to be quite difficult. In the early stages, we had problems with the brush drying and the wax falling out in drops. Eventually, we managed to come up with a method for making a core of wax putty that dries in about 20 seconds. This is what we call the tactile pen unit.”

Finally, I asked about the relationships that Yasuhisa Koki is building with customers to create such original products.

“For us, it’s not enough just to do what the customer has asked for. We’re proactive about making our own suggestions too. If you want to make something good, you can’t be subservient to the customer. It’s important that you’re able to speak your mind frankly on an equal footing. We always make an effort to speak in the same frank, straightforward way, regardless of who we may be talking to—even if it’s a doctor or professor.”

There is nothing complacent or retiring about Yasuhisa Koki. The company creates its new prototypes from a position of equality with customers. This gives us a glimpse of the new Japanese companies that will shape the new industries of the future.