Our main business is casting and machining light alloys, and some examples of our products are transportation systems, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and robot parts. Particularly as a company in the aerospace and defense industries, in recent years there have been many opportunities to expose our company to the media, and we have achieved a significant increase in related sales even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, our main business was casting, including machining, heat treatment, and surface treatment of castings, but in recent years we have also invested in engineering such as mechanical design, analysis evaluation, and alloy development as part of innovations in our business areas. Accordingly, we are also focusing on quality control such as with CMMs, X-ray inspection, and evaluation. In the future, we would like to further enhance the added value of engineering and evaluation demonstration. We changed our Japanese company name last year from Tanida Alloy Ltd to the present TANIDA LTD. This is because the word "alloy" in the company name gives a strong impression of a foundry. We changed our name to TANIDA LTD because we are not solely about castings or solely about machining, and hope to expand our businesses into a diverse range of fields.

We are also focusing on investing in human resources as part of the business expansion plan I mentioned earlier. In addition to workers directly involved in manufacturing, we are focusing on increasing the number of casting engineers who can use CAE, CAD and CAM, as well as special process members, which are a very important group of experts for the aerospace industry. We also introduced 3D printers in 2008. The gearboxes in an aircraft engine are equipped with various components made from cast materials that have undergone precision processing. Being very complex, this processing cannot be achieved with molds and die castings, which Japan is skilled at. These components will likely continue to be made by sand casting and machining, and because it is a niche field, there is a high barrier to entry. However, by combining 3D printer technology with our proprietary differential pressure casting, we exceeded conventional limitations of manufacturing to achieve a practical casting method before any other company. We have also obtained international certification for all of the various special processes such as sand casting and welding. These certification examinations are very strict, and there are many certifications for inspection systems such as material testing and X-ray. For this reason we are heavily involved with ACCRETECH, and we hope that a continued relationship will help improve this field further. Leveraging our technologies and certifications, we deliver high-quality products that have earned such satisfaction from major overseas customers that we have entered direct contracts with them.

At TANIDA, we strongly promote “Beyond the Limit” as our company motto based on our determination to exceed the limits of manufacturing imposed by conventional processing methods. For this reason, we are conscious of not focusing solely on castings although it is our main business. While sand molds have not yet penetrated the aircraft parts field, we’re actually considering attempting to make such parts with resin. In order to exceed the limit even a little and advance further, we will look beyond casting and broaden our perspective to cover monozukuri as a the whole. We believe that is an important corporate mindset to have.