Konica Minolta opens Innovation Garden OSAKA Front, a cooperation and development centre for imaging AI and IoT

| 18 October 2019

Offering new value for the evolution of human society by meeting the visualisation needs of customers

Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) has opened the Innovation Garden OSAKA Front to develop the imaging AI and imaging IoT[1] businesses and promote open innovation with customers and partner companies on the 32nd floor of Grand Front Osaka located in the centre of Osaka, in front of Umeda Station and Osaka Station. The facility will engage in full-scale development of imaging IoT in the Kansai region by leveraging imaging AI technology and high-speed processing technology, which are the strengths of the company, as part of the growth strategy.


In 2020, Konica Minolta will construct the Innovation Garden OSAKA Center at the R&D centre near Japan Railway (JR) Takatsuki Station (Takatsuki Site). Core human resources in imaging AI and imaging IoT will be assigned to these centres, and will be joined by new employees and mid-career recruits. Innovation Garden OSAKA, which is the collective name for the Innovation Garden OSAKA Front and the Innovation Garden OSAKA Center, will create new value by using the strength of diverse human resources and will contribute to the evolution of human society by meeting the various visualisation needs of global customers.

Konica Minolta meets such needs by using technology for visualising the invisible, based on the photo film and camera businesses on which the company was founded, to offer solutions and contribute to society. Konica Minolta’s human resources in imaging AI and imaging IoT will work mainly at Innovation Garden OSAKA and cooperate with local stakeholders to create new value.

Konica Minolta’s technologies for visualising the invisible, which utilise imaging AI and IoT, and their applications are as follows:

  • Care Support Solution that visualises the behavior patterns of residents at care facilities
  • Gas Monitoring Solution that visualises invisible gases
  • Remote sensing that visualies the growth of plants on vast farms (cooperation between Yanmar and Konica Minolta)
  • Go Insight that visualises the behavior patterns of consumers at stores
  • Visualisation technology for personalised medicine such as visualisation of genes, proteins, cells, and internal organs

 

Innovation Garden OSAKA Front

The Innovation Garden OSAKA Front is an office for achieving an attractive workplace that facilitates the creation of ideas based on the concept of “Agile development × Open innovation (open collaboration) × Activity-based working (ABW) = Creation of innovative ideas.”

The Innovation Garden OSAKA Front is adjacent to Umeda Station which is highly accessible. It promotes industry-academia cooperation and open innovation with local companies and universities. The office is divided into different zones so that employees can choose from diverse workstyles. The interaction area helps generate innovative ideas based on freewheeling thinking in cooperation with local companies and universities. The concentration area enables Konica Minolta’s human resources in charge of imaging IoT and imaging AI who are permanently stationed at the office to reflect ideas invented in the interaction area immediately in the development process. The Innovation Garden OSAKA Front is an agile business development centre that provides an attractive workplace.

Rendering of Innovation Garden OSAKA Front

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                        
Innovation Garden OSAKA Front, Location: 32nd Floor, South Building Tower A, Grand Front Osaka4-20 Ofuka-cho, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0011, Japan

 

Innovation Garden OSAKA Center

The Innovation Garden OSAKA Center will be constructed at the Takatsuki Site (Takatsuki City, Osaka Prefecture) near JR Takatsuki Station in FY2020 to strengthen the capability to develop imaging AI and imaging IoT. It will serve as the hub together with the Innovation Garden OSAKA Front that has been opened in Umeda.

The development of imaging IoT that utilises imaging AI and high-speed processing technology, which are Konica Minolta’s strengths, will drive the growth of the company’s global IoT business and data business. Konica Minolta will promote the full-scale development of these technologies to strengthen its development capabilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                              Innovation Garden OSAKA Front (to be constructed in 2020)  

 

[1] Technologies to analyse image data and various types of sensor information by utilising AI technology including deep learning to support decision-making and judgment at various sites.



About Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc. is a global technology company that provides innovative solutions to businesses and society. With its strengths in the combination of its core technologies in advanced imaging, optics, sensing, materials and nano-processing, Konica Minolta is committed to creating new values supporting customers to address challenges in their operations and work processes. Advancing its expertise in digital technologies, the company has been going through business transformation into a digital company, with insights into implicit challenges across the board as ‘One Konica Minolta’ in the era of Internet of the Things (IoT). Konica Minolta is also active in open innovation through various collaborations and alliances with academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners.Headquartered in Tokyo, Konica Minolta has its Group companies in 50 countries with over 44,300 employees and offers products and services in 150 countries around the world.

About Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe

Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, based in Langenhagen, Germany, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Konica Minolta Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Konica Minolta enables its clients to champion the digital era: with its unique imaging expertise and data processing capabilities, Konica Minolta creates relevant solutions for its customers and solves issues faced by society. As a provider of comprehensive IT services, Konica Minolta delivers consultancy and services to optimise business processes with workflow automation. The company further offers its customers solutions and managed services in the field of IT infrastructure and IT security as well as cloud environments. With regard to its office printing solutions, ‘IDC MarketScape: Western Europe Smart Multifunctional Peripheral 2018 Vendor Assessment’ stated that Konica Minolta is ‘recognised globally as a leading smart MFP provider of note’. As a strong partner for the professional printing market, Konica Minolta offers business consulting, state-of-the-art technology and software and has established itself as the production printing market leader for more than a decade in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa (InfoSource). In the healthcare sector, Konica Minolta drives digitalisation of clinical workflows and offers a broad range of next-level diagnostic solutions. Its Business Innovation Centre in London and four R & D laboratories in Europe enable Konica Minolta to bring innovation forward by collaborating with its customers as well as academic, industrial and entrepreneurial partners. For its solutions that combine ‘smart service with smart technology’, Konica Minolta was awarded the prestigious ‘Buyers Lab PaceSetter Award for Outstanding Serviceability 2018/2019’ from Keypoint Intelligence. Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is represented by subsidiaries and distributors in more than 80 countries in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. With almost 10,300 employees (as of April 2019), Konica Minolta Europe earned net sales of over EUR 2.39 billion in financial year 2018/19.

For more information, please visit http://newsroom.konicaminolta.eu/ and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter @KonicaMinoltaEU.

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