Renias Co., Ltd.
Touru Maeda, Representative Executive Vice President

You probably know about what polycarbonates (PC) are, right? Light, tough, transparent, petroleum-based resins that are sometimes called "organic glass". They’re all around you in things like music CD’s, DVD’s, and also bigger items like the roofing on outdoor shopping arcades or the cab windows on backhoes and other heavy equipment. However, the material in its raw form has one drawback: it is easily scratched.

Renias Co., Ltd. makes a number of products using a proprietary manufacturing technology that takes care of this problem. From the surface hard coating process to use-specific printing, molding, and trimming, all at one facility, Renias has "the Japan’s largest, not to mention most unique, processing and integrated production system," said Vice President Maeda. The company can actually boast of a 90% share in the market for construction machinery cab windows, for example.

Recently, Renias has developed coatings that provide surfaces with a hardness that is on a par with glass, and technology for filtering out a wide band of infrared (IR) rays, to name but two. They plan to use these new, wider applications for PC, as well as new environmentally friendly technologies, as leverage to make progress into new areas of businesses such as trucks and buses, railway cars, building materials, and so on. However, Vice President Maeda states that the aim is to strive to be "a small, top-class enterprise", without "becoming too bloated."

Golf cart with a Renias window

Meeting Two Conflicting Needs at Once

The history of Renias begins in 1976, with the founding of the Nishinihon Gasket Co. by the company’s president, Sadao Maeda. (A gasket is a part that seals joints in pipes and the like, similar to a kind of packing material.) The company began with the manufacture and sale of parts for rice planters, combines, and other agricultural machinery. 1988 saw the creation of a subsidiary to conduct R&D and production of carbon fiber and polycarbonates, and the construction of the main production facility in Mihara City. In 1991 the company changed its name to Renias and then in 1995 moved its corporate headquarters to its present location in Mihara.

Corporate headquarters (courtesy Renias Co., Ltd.)

Trimming work inside the factory

Polycarbonate rear window

One indication of Renias’ technological prowess is the development of the super hard coat mentioned above. The company’s hard coating products have always had a higher abrasion resistance (hardness) than its competitors’ products. But, over and above that, they have succeeded in developing a unique process for "super-hardening through exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays".

Going by the pencil hardness test, which is based on the Japan Industrial Standard (JIS), the super hard coat scores a "5H" (five times the hardness of previous coatings), attaining a level very close to the "6H" hardness of glass. Although regulations prohibit its use for front windshields on cars at this stage, it has begun to appear on rear and side windows, thus greatly widening the scope of applications for PC.

The material is both pliable and extremely hard. Made like a samurai sword, you might say. "Hard, but also resilient": these two seemingly incompatible requirements have both been met in the same material. Because of its pliable nature, it is, according to Vice President Maeda, "a surface even more resistant than glass to scratches from pebbles or sand."

The company has also developed a coating that cuts infrared rays. Metallic oxides are mixed with the liquid hard coat during the fabrication process. IR permeability is less than 20%, and for UV that figure is zero. However, over 70% of visible light passes through. Renias chose to conduct its own test inside a car in midsummer. With regular glass, the seats heated up to over 65°C, as opposed to at most 52°C with the IR hard coat, a significant result.

There is a large convenience store in Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture that has the IR hard coat on its windows. They have seen a 30% reduction in their air conditioners’ power consumption, thus leading to the expectation that the technology can contribute to efforts against global warming.

Protecting Employees’ Quality of Life

The company’s management philosophy, expressed in the title, "a small, top-class enterprise", indicates a certain resolve, explained by Vice President Maeda as being "Even if we’re small, we can still boast of meeting important needs in the world, keep up with the changing times, and bring in new customers. We will survive, without fearing innovation, by striving to pursue the happiness, both physically and mentally, of the people we work with, while at the same time contributing to humanity at large and the progress of society."

One concrete example of this idea is the company’s stance of protecting employees’ quality of life, even in a recession. Renias, which had sales of 4 billion yen in F.Y. 2007, saw that figure drop sharply to approximately 2 billion yen in F.Y. 2009, due to the global financial crisis, among other factors. Nonetheless, the company kept its wages at 100%, without any layoffs or other downsizing. Vice President Maeda says it is better that employees have a keen awareness of such difficulties and what can be done about them. "It’s made us leaner and stronger."

The recession has heightened an awareness that, "Of course, you’ve got to expand into new areas." At the same time, many construction and agricultural equipment manufacturers (which currently account for 70% of sales) are making a move offshore. The plan is therefore to achieve 5 billion yen in sales in F.Y. 2013, with half that total coming from securing business in new fields like buses, trucks, railways, golf carts, building materials, and security products.

Even so Vice President Maeda thinks that, "We will continue to put our products out there, without getting mixed up in any price competition." There is the temptation to move operations to China. But, "If we were to compete by chasing after lower and lower costs, just exactly where does that end?" And hence they’re staying in Japan, with an eye towards achieving the very top class in quality and technology, as well as in their people and the way they treat their people, rather than just pursuing expansion for expansion’s sake.

Various polycarbonate products(courtesy Renias Co., Ltd.)

Renias Co., Ltd.

R&D, manufacturing, and sales of transparent resins and processed aluminum products related to transportation,
automobiles, and building materials.

〒729-0473
200-76 Obara, Nutanishi-cho, Mihara-shi, Hiroshima , Japan
TEL: +81-848-86-1137
FAX: +81-848-86-6377
Capital: JPY 70 million
Number of employees:80 (May, 2010)
http://www.renias.co.jp/ 【Japanese】