Business　Basics

Canon Inc. has 294 group companies in world wide with a total employees of about 200,000.
Among them, domestic group's employees, including subsidiaries, are about 72,000, and Canon Inc's employees are almost 26,000. 　
Within Kiyohara industrial park, there are three our operations, Utsunomiya Optical Products Plant, Optics R&D Center, and Utsunomiya Plant, and they are called Utsunomiya Office as a whole. Utsunomiya Office is directly controlled by the head office, with 4,500 employees, almost 17% of Canon Inc.'s employees are working.

Our company's products are categorized into three different fields.
Firstly consumer products, including home use cameras, videos, and printers.
Secondly office products, such as copy machines and fax combined machines used in offices.
Thirdly Industrial equipment, used at big factories and hospitals, etc..
Utsunomiya Office does research, develop, and manufacturing for the consumer products and industrial equipment.

Tochigi Prefecture and its Business Environment

Our relationship with Tochigi had been started when Taihei Optics Industries Co., Ltd. was absorbed by Canon in 1965. Later, the company name was changed to Tochigi Canon Inc in 1969. At that time, it was operated in Kanuma City, and in 1977 Tochigi Canon Inc. was developed in Utsunomiya plant in Kiyohara industrial park, and the name was changed to Canon Inc.- Utsunomiya plant by the merger with Canon Inc in 1982. In 1983, Optical Products Plant, and in 2000, Optics R&D center were developed, and has come to the present.

Tochigi has a very good access to Tokyo by expressways or Shinkansen, it is a big merit for every corporation to be able to operate in such a vast site areas within one hour distance from Tokyo. Also, we feel a good access to Chiba and Ibaraki areas by the completion of the Kitakanto Expressway. Our company may use the port in Ibaraki and Narita airport, so here is a very good location from the point of logistics.
Further, water supply is a key for producing optical lenses in this operation. Kiyohara industrial park is closely located to the Kinugawa river, and it is advantage to be able to secure clean water in vast amount. 　

For natural environments, less effect of snow does not bring any difficulties on our operations even in winter.
For living environments, we have heard that many people in our office say prices of goods are relatively low and good environments for living. Because of that, more relocated employees in the plant are likely to staying in Tochigi after their retirements.

Made in Tochigi

Utsunomiya office is a vital base of the integrated operation of research and development and manufacturing, with putting together the company's cutting edge optical technologies.
Our company's optical technologies is the sources of the company's growth, they are adopted into not only consumer products but also office equipment.
Optics Technology R&D Center is responsible for fundamental research and fundamental development of optical technologies. It's research results are directly reflected into the products at Optical products plant and Utsunomiya plant.

【Lenses for Single-lens reflex camera】

Utsunomiya plant provides an integrated production, from machining to assembly, of replacement lenses for single-lens reflex cameras which widely accepted by professionals and amateurs in all over the world. Since all of, so called, L-lenses for professional specifications are produced in here Kiyohara, we can say that made in Tochigi lenses are habitually used by professionals and a higher level of amateurs. Utsunomiya plant produces other digital compact cameras and lenses for office machines also.

【Broadcasting Equipment】

As a product associated with people's daily life, we produce lenses for broadcasting used at TV studios or baseball stadiums, and news coverage sites, etc.　Our market share of those broadcasting lenses is maintained more than 50% in worldwide. Those products are made only in this plant in our company, more than a half of TV pictures you are watching on TV are made through our lenses.

Also LCD projectors used in schools and other public facilities are manufactured. They are available in applications for small meeting rooms or for large screens. The largest one can project 300 inches of screen size image at 9 meter in distance. Those are products produced in Utsunomiya plant, and you are familiar with them.

【Semiconductor Lithography Equipment】

In Utsunomiya optical products plant, semiconductor lithography equipment and LCD lithography equipment are produced.
Semiconductor lithography equipment is a device to burn patterns of semiconductor circuits which installed on electronics equipment such as mobile phones and PCs. Equipped with the most precise lithography technologies, they are used at semiconductor manufacturers in the world.
LCD lithography equipment is a device to burn patterns of circuits onto glass panels to make LCD panels for such as LCD TV, and it's lens units are produced in this plant. They are also used at LCD manufacturers in the world.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, "Subaru Telescopes", in Hawaii Mauna Kea summit, are equipped with lens made from the clusters of optical technologies of Canon. A lens of 0.97m in diameter and 1.6m in height, a dozen of pieces of lens are equipped, those were manufactured in our Optical Products Plant. 　

Contributing Local Community

We rent our employee's parking spaces for various events held in Kiyohara district such as fire works, sports events such as Tochigi SC's soccer game, high school base ball games, and other events for people in Tochigi, and our employees are conducting periodical cleaning activities for Kiyohara industrial park and around the plant.

The Industry, academia and the local government partnership research between us and Utsunomiya university and Tochigi Prefecture are conducted.　
We support for funding and educations at "Optics Education Research Center" which has been developed for the purpose of training of engineers for future optic industry and technical development of optical application fields. A participation of joint project with the local university means our local contributions and benefits from location environment in Tochigi. 　
Further, for the purpose of moderation of traffic jams and consideration for the local community people, commuting buses to and from Utsunomiya station has been arranged in the morning and evening, since the development of our plant.

As for environmental considerations, a complete recycling of water is realized in the plant.
Lens processing requires a large amount of water for polishings and washings, the water used for processing are not released, they are reproduced and reused in a closed system. Especially, washing water is reproduced to the level of pure water after the filtrations of reused water in the process.

Comments for the People in Tochigi

Our office would like to continue our operations together with people in this community continuously. We would like to provide the world No.1 products from Tochigi, Utsunomiya, and Kiyohara to all over the world together with them.
It would be very grateful if further development of our operations lead to further development of Tochigi Prefecture.