Our Vision

The manufacturing industry is interesting.
What was impossible yesterday is a matter of fact today.
It’s an industry that changes the global landscape.

MATSUO makes connections.
We connect distinctive technologies, knowledge, wisdom, sensibilities, and dreams, but doing so is surprisingly difficult.
We pursue knowledge at a deep level and engage in a repeated cycle of challenges and failure.
And after seeing things through to the very end, something new takes shape.

The manufacturing industry will only continue to become more and more interesting.
And we want to make that change happen together.

MISSION

To make the manufacturing industry more interesting by connecting wisdom across the world.

VISION

We will create a Peaks Community that goes beyond the boundaries of national borders and fields to change the common knowledge and perspectives of manufacturing.

VALUES

1. Always be righteous
2. Create your own work
3. Have the courage to accept differences
4. Show people you care who are nearby
5. Honest thoughts are always impactful
6. It’s over once you’ve lost your curiosity
7. Focus on mechanism instead of phenomena
8. Be in the center instead of the periphery
9. There is always a door somewhere
10. Enjoy whatever you do

Automotive parts

Automotive Division

As a Tier 1 supplier directly delivering important safety components such as steering wheels and airbags to automakers, we are engaged in automobile manufacturing from development right through to delivery.

Raw materials for coatings

Coating Material Division

Our expertise is based on experience and a proven track record across many aspects of the coatings field. We offer optimal, high-quality solutions and leading-edge technologies to all customers in global and regional markets.

R&D Apparatus/High Functional Materials

Advanced Technology Division

Our variety of products including test coaters, measurement equipment, optical parts, and heat-dissipation materials, will accelerate the development of R&D, advanced electronics, semiconductors, EVs, and biotechnology. A wide range of products, materials can be tested at our demonstration rooms.

Solar energy & Recycles

Energy Solutions Division

We offer not only the optimal products for solar power generation from all around the world, including various raw materials and components but also solutions to help realize a sustainable society, such as loT proposals working toward carbon neutrality, the sale of storage batteries, and recycling after disposal.

OUR HISTORY

Along with the history of manufacturing, our company has diversified into various things and various industries.

Propose a new one

Aluminum effect pigments

From an unfamiliar sample can to a world-changing product

Our company has had extensive relationships with the coating industry since our founding, and after discovering an unfamiliar sample can that had been sleeping away in the corner of a warehouse, we created a detailed sketch of its label and took it back with us for research. We firmly believed this would be a product that would change the industry significantly, so we used our connections to negotiate directly with the original Canadian manufacturer and began handling its distribution in Japan.
The concept of this product was unprecedented, it had a big price barrier to overcome, and there were piles of it in our warehouse, but despite those challenges, all of the company’s employees worked hard to promote the product, and our company later became its general sales agent in Japan.

Bringing the color of brilliance to manufacturing

Aluminum effect pigment would first come to be adopted by a major paint manufacturer and was then used everywhere in Japan, including large shipping vessels, bridges, and the Nagoya TV tower.

Moreover, the homogenous metallic paint achieved by aluminum effect pigment transformed aluminum paint that had been functionally necessary into something that contributed to the “aesthetic appearance” of objects. Its near-futuristic color sparked a trend for the use of the color silver, repeatedly expanding the deployment of the product in coating colors that were essential for automobiles as well as home electronics, and contributing to innovation.

Run with suppliers

Automobile Parts

The Automobile Industry

Our first deals in the automobile industry began with the delivery of pipes for railway car decks to Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd. (currently Subaru Corporation) as a sales agent for Nagoya Rubber Co., Ltd. (currently Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.). Fuji Heavy Industries started producing Japan’s first national car, the “Subaru 360,” aiming to transform Japan into a major producer of domestic passenger cars. Our company entered the automobile industry by delivering parts such as handles. And at the time, an age in which ordinary households could achieve the Japanese dream of having passenger cars had arrived.

Taking on the challenge of airbag development

We collaborated with two other companies to jointly develop airbags, life-saving safety devices that are automatically equipped as standard in cars today. As a product that impacts human lives, there was no room for compromises or mistakes, and extremely high standards were required. At first, airbags were only found in the driver’s seat, but now they are installed in a wide variety of locations, and their safety performance continues to evolve. We have also participated in development from the creation of concepts as well as the planning phase, and we continue to work with manufacturers to develop next-generation technologies.

Our technological and developmental capabilities as a trading company are highly regarded, even on a global level

Despite being a trading company, we are highly regarded for displaying a commitment to development and quality equal to that of a manufacturer. As a symbol of that regard, the General Motors Company (GM) in the U.S. presented us with the “2001 Supplier of the Year Award,” which is given to companies that are recognized as being especially excellent. *At the time, Fuji Heavy Industries and the General Motors Company (GM) in the U.S. had a capital and business alliance.

In-house development

In-house development as a trading company

Expanding business by getting ahead of potential needs

We began selling electrostatic powder coating machines from Gema Switzerland GmbH. At the time, the concept of applying powder coating without the use of organic solvents was new, and it was an innovative painting system that improved the environment of painting sites where work was often said to be demanding, dirty and dangerous, and allowed for paint to be reused. In Japan, where pollution had been a serious problem, we were pioneers in singling out environmental and on-site improvements as a business opportunity. Japan’s largest air conditioner production line was the first to adopt the coating machines, and this was followed by orders for many large-scale lines. We then expanded our design and engineering departments and completed the construction of powder coating plants worldwide.

In-house developed products adopted by America’s Big Three automakers

Later, we began to develop products beyond the scope of a specialized trading company. Our in-house developed powder coating machine with constant feeder (SFC system) was continuously improved to meet the needs of our users, and this made uniform coating film a reality. This led to us being recognized worldwide as a manufacturer due to our SFC system being adopted as an unprecedented technology in the car body painting lines of America’s Big Three automakers.

Passion for manufacturing

The Coating Equipment Manufacturers Association

Simultaneously with our position as a trading company, we took on the role of flag-bearer and established the Coating Equipment Manufacturers Association together with manufacturing company representatives with the aim of popularizing as well as improving the technology of painting machines and equipment.

Incubation

Nurturing cutting-edge technology

State-of-the-art laser technology

We established RASEL Co., Ltd. to develop and sell laser markers. We delivered semiconductors and other parts necessary for experiments and research to the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI), which incorporated state-of-the-art technology. This contributed to the development of technology such as titanium-sapphire lasers that make it possible to emit green lasers and ultrashort pulses. RASEL then turned into a business that contributed to next-generation energy research, including the success of JAERI (as it was known at the time) in achieving the maximum output of green lasers.

Taking on the challenge of technological issues

Aspherical glass lenses are a groundbreaking technology that eliminates the out-of-focus “aberrations” that have been a problem for lenses, and they have made it possible to reduce the size, weight, and cost of products. There were only a handful of companies that were able to manufacture these lenses, and so we established “SIM Optical,” a consortium of three companies, with our company in charge of marketing and sales, SYS in charge of manufacturing equipment, and Ito Optical in charge of manufacturing.

Global

MATSUO China Laboratory

For our expansion into China, after repeated, thorough discussions, we established Shanghai Matsuo-Horsense Trading Co., Ltd. in 2004 with our current partners who shared our ideas and philosophies. After that, we opened more bases in Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Chongqing to cover the whole of China. We established a research laboratory for paint and coating technology that meets customer needs in collaboration with the Dongguan University of Technology, and through this laboratory, we actively promote analysis, research, and development, in addition to sales.

BUSINESS

COMPANY

OUR VISION