Products

Pursue product safety and quality

Basic stance

As the world’s leading comprehensive motor manufacturer featuring an extensive product line-up and large supply volume, Nidec has a duty besides simply providing products; we must ensure safety in every aspect, from the selection of parts in light of environmental friendliness to the safety of products, as well as disposal and recycling. We believe that we can help create sustainable social infrastructure by providing our customers with products that can be used in a safe and dependable manner. To realize this idea, it is necessary to maintain a high level of product performance in terms of environmental friendliness, requiring a database that serves as a guide to selecting materials at the time of component design. In FY2021, the Small Precision Motor & Solutions Business Unit built such a material selection database. From now on, we will actively carry out activities to spread the use of this database.
　Moreover, now that the automotive products business has developed into a major segment accounting for over 20% of our consolidated net sales, in order to satisfy all the quality needs of car manufacturers, it is important to have globally uniform methods of quality management and quality assurance. To strengthen the cross-departmental management of the automotive business covering all automotive products, we plan to establish an overall quality control organization and system by FY2025.
　Meanwhile, risks associated with our automotive-related products have been increasing in line with the expansion of our market presence. The safety of automotive products is a matter of the highest priority with respect to human lives. We will conduct strict safety assessments of both finished and in-process products (mainly newly developed products) to prevent the quality failure of any of the automotive products Nidec provides from having a significant impact on driving safety.

Initiatives in FY2021

The Small Precision Motor & Solutions Business Unit has completed the creation of a material selection database in order to take environmental friendliness and safety into consideration from the component design phase. We have also started working toward formulating a roadmap for activities to halve environmentally hazardous substances (compared to the FY2021 level) while deepening employees’ understanding of ESG materiality by conducting education using e-learning within our business units.
　Meanwhile, for the pursuit of safety and quality related to our automotive products, the Automotive Motor & Electronic Control Business Unit has begun examining specific global management methods in order to establish a methodology for evaluating product safety risks according to the severity and degree of the impact of each product. For example, as a first step toward establishing an overall quality management organization and system by 2025, we have started building a global quality control system. To ensure that assessments are carried out with regard to all newly developed products and all products in the manufacturing process, we have begun examining evaluation items and methods according to the severity and degree of the impact of product-specific defects.

Toward the future

The Small Precision Motor & Solutions Business Unit aims to actually use the material selection database mentioned above in FY2022. We will continue to actively replace substances and materials that are not environmentally friendly.
　The Automotive Motor & Electronic Control Business Unit will proceed with information analysis using data from past product development and data at overseas bases, so as to monitor and judge, within FY2022, the validity of each KPI that has been selected as an index for product safety risk assessment. From FY2023 onwards, we will apply this initiative to not only automotive products but also Nidec’s other products in order to promote initiatives to strengthen our quality control system.

Respond to changes in the technological environment and the industrial structure

Basic stance

Towards the realization of a sustainable society, Nidec regards global social issues, including environmental problems caused by global warming and declining working-age population due to the declining birthrate and aging population, as critical social issues. To solve these issues through our products and business services, we are committed to enhancing product development and technological research.

Initiatives in FY2021

To promote activities to reduce CO₂ emissions through product development and business services, we have endeavored to ascertain the amount of contribution to reducing CO₂ emissions and worked to quantify the amount of our environmental contribution. Furthermore, to enhance sustainability-conscious product development, we once again reviewed the research and development domain in the product-development roadmap, strengthened the environmental contribution guidelines, and worked to foster and spread awareness.

Toward the future

In technology and product development, we will strive to develop technology that helps society and customers reduce environmental impact while pursuing environmental value in line with customer needs, in order to achieve greater proliferation of our products. With regard to the pursuit of environmental value, we will promote research and development that enable energy saving, resource saving, and recycling (use of recycled materials) by encouraging the group-wide application of the group companies’ technologies conducive to environmental conservation and the effective use of resources.

Research and development to support the sustainable growth of the company

As the world’s leading comprehensive motor manufacturer, the Nidec Group has established R&D facilities that collaborate globally with the aim of contributing to a wide range of industrial fields. The missions of the facilities are: to develop innovative products that accelerate the growth of the Nidec Group, to advance and upgrade production technology to strengthen the foundation of manufacturing, and to create and disseminate technologies conducive to solving social issues. Nidec regards business fields to which higher priority is assigned in terms of problem solving due to changes in the social environment as promising growth markets, namely, “Five Big Waves.” The Nidec Group companies are making a concerted effort to strengthen technology development and intellectual property strategies, and advance initiatives to accelerate product development.
　With its eyes focused on the needs of future society, the Nidec Research and Development Center puts its energies into research and development to create new products and technologies that will realize a sustainable society, as well as into research in the motor application field that will lead the growth of the Nidec Group. Meanwhile, the Nidec Center for Industrial Science is working to evolve our production sites in a unified manner by incorporating cutting-edge production technology that utilizes digital transformation and AI so that we can achieve more efficient manufacturing. In addition, the Global Production Engineering Division develops production methods that accompany technological innovation and supports the implementation of such methods, providing a cooperative system aimed at rapid and flexible development within the Group.
　In 2021, we launched the Platform Development Center as a laboratory responsible for advanced development in specific fields, with the aim of standardizing the E-Axle and strengthening competitiveness in the development of next-generation models. Furthermore, the Nidec Semiconductor Solutions Center, which was established in May 2022, is looking ahead to smartification in the motor business by means of semiconductors. We are confident that we will continue to contribute to the development of society by providing solutions through our products and technological development.
　Nidec has more than 330 business companies in and outside Japan, featuring the accumulation of diverse technologies. Bringing together the knowledge and technology that each company has cultivated individually, we will work toward accelerating development and creating innovation.

Protect and utilize intellectual properties

Basic stance

Aiming to contribute to the growth of its business through the creation of intellectual added value, Nidec endeavors to improve the value of its intellectual properties by establishing and reinforcing a professional IP organization and an internationally competitive IP portfolio. Specifically, our activities include portfolio management and rights utilization suited to each stage of the product lifecycle. Meanwhile, Nidec respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, receiving licenses or technologies from them as necessary or allowing them to use our intellectual property rights, thereby promoting multiple utilizations of intellectual properties. Within the company, to encourage one of our Three Essential Attitudes, “working hard and smart,” in which engineers actively create ideas and know-how for new technologies, Nidec has an award system to recognize efforts to develop inventions and contributions to business.
　Toward the realization of a sustainable society, we are working on developing products to solve social issues, focusing mainly on the Five Big Waves.^* To protect such products and secure competitive advantages, we will develop an IP portfolio and advance the IP portfolio transformation in line with our business portfolio. Based on this approach, we will set KPIs and conduct IP-related activities.

* Of the market megatrends that have arisen against the backdrop of recent social issues, the five fields that Nidec is particularly focusing on

Initiatives in FY2021

We are actively promoting patent application and acquisition mainly for products related to the Five Big Waves. Meanwhile, in existing businesses, we proceeded with IP portfolio transformation, for example, streamlining the portfolio according to the stage of the product lifecycle.
　The ratio of products related to the Five Big Waves among all Nidec Group products has increased from 51% in 2017 to 53% in 2021 (see the figure below). In the middle of the worlds move to decarbonization, we commenced volume production of our EV traction motor system “E-Axle” in 2019, and that of its second-generation model in September 2022. Furthermore, we are currently developing its third-generation model and expanding our intellectual property portfolio. The number of valid patents related to the E-Axle in 2021 was approximately 5.8 times the number in 2017. For robot-related products, we are stepping up patent applications for reduction gears that help us make more compact and lighter products. In this regard, the number of valid patents^* in 2021 was approximately 1.2 times the number in 2017.

* Number of valid patents: Number of patents both in force and pending

Toward the future

We will continue to apply for and acquire patents mainly in terms of product groups related to the Five Big Waves. Meanwhile, in our existing businesses, we will proceed with IP portfolio transformation while evaluating the patent value.
　For the E-Axle in particular, we participate in the Green Innovation Fund^*1 project publicly offered by the NEDO,^*2 and have launched the development of magnet-free motors with a strong awareness of resource risk and sustainability. We will continue to reinforce our IP portfolio.

*1 Green Innovation Fund: a fund established by NEDO to create a virtuous cycle of economy and the environment, which is espoused in the Green Growth Strategy Through Achieving Carbon Neutrality in 2050 formulated by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry with other relevant ministries and agencies on December 25, 2020

*2 NEDO: New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization