In today’s technology-driven world, businesses must keep pace with the latest trends and constantly innovate, not just to stay ahead of the competition, but also to solve real-world problems. In any company, innovation is always determined by a powerful combination of drive, skill, and size; the drive to set a progressive agenda and fund promising ideas, the size to transform and effectuate these opportunities into revenue sources, and the skill to effortlessly merge the ideas and sources into a well-tuned, adaptable, innovation system.

Since its establishment in 1953, Santoku Corporation’s mission has been to stimulate innovative business processes with an unfaltering determination to traverse global frontiers. The reputed Japanese company covers a versatile range of business activities, from offering fastening and electrical solutions to industries to the creation of customized equipment using three-dimensional authoring tools.

Santoku Corporation aims to strengthen and improve safety effectiveness through its strong corporate philosophy, methods to solve safety issues, customized products, and an insightful development roadmap. The company’s vision is to further contribute to the field of safety, by introducing adaptive and innovative systems and prompt initiatives.

To reduce disasters and make a positive contribution to society, the corporation creates high-class methods and ideas that enhance safety. One such product crafted by the Santoku Corporation, is RiMM, a solution that is said to ‘walk with the earth’ to respond to disasters.

In 2007, Susumu Matsuda, the Director of Santoku Corporation, developed a disaster response training simulator, which set the stage for a RiMM that would enhance safety by leveraging cutting-edge technology. As stated by the accomplished Director, “ RiMM is a system that fuses the virtual and the real to reproduce the senses, convey the fear of disasters, and improve sensitivity.”

RiMM, an abbreviation of Risk Management Multiple Method, is an exceptional solution not just stimulates creative ideas to mitigate risk, but also enlightens people on safety ideas that benefit them and the planet.

Through RiMM, it is possible to adjust the amount of stimulation by customizing the five senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste to suit the characteristics of each individual. The goal of this personalized approach is to tailor an effective experience, that suits unique characteristics. RiMM consists of nine kinds of services in total, divided into three products – RiMM Skill Training, RiMM Safety Education, and RiMM disaster response. The three products seamlessly work together, and are continually improved based on the following factors:

• Convert information from disasters into valuable, actionable data
• Establish an organization to share information and discover, create, evaluate and improve methods for shared use.
• Foster human resources to discover new, creative solutions.

The training and education programs have been designed in accordance with the different stages of disaster experience. The training process includes repetitive tasks that familiarize one’s body with work procedures and skill training simulators that help them deal with abnormal behavior. To effectively deal with potential disasters, the corporation offers a suite of online products and graphical training methods that aid in defining virtual disasters and creating virtual simulations to learn rapid, informed responses.

The RiMM range of educational tools consists of products such as videos of disaster case studies, and sensitivity-enhancing VR tools to raise awareness and prevent disasters from occurring. To reach its goal of 360-degree safety, both for people as well the global environment, the company is in the process of expanding the RiMM solution, to include a  disaster experience database and educational tools that will cover natural disasters, general disasters including traffic and firefighting disasters, occupational disasters, and human disasters including terrorism.

The environment, nature of work, and the employee’s capability and experience, are factors that determine the problems that may arise in any workplace. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully curate a set of diverse training scenarios for every possible situation. By leveraging a cyclical system called the Cyclone Philosophy, Santoku Corporation can improve education quality using valuable customer feedback, standardize solutions to promote reuse and reduce costs and deliver top-notch products to the market at a rapid, steady pace.

The Cyclone Philosophy helps the Santoku Corporation stay ahead of its competition, as it facilitates the creation of product prototypes that cater to market demands, rapid introduction to the market, and a constant system of improvement. The novel solution leaves room for the tweaking of existing functions and parts and the development of new, in-house functions by combining mechatronics, image processing, microcomputer control, and VR technology.

The Santoku Corporation, with its innovative array of solutions, has enabled clients to overcome challenging hurdles with ease. It has been reported that the number of disasters decreases with an increase in safety awareness. By experiencing realistic disasters through VR, people are compelled to learn and master safety techniques to avoid grave danger.

Even five years after the launch of its RiMM product, more than 350 companies are still using it, and the number of repeat users is over forty percent. To maintain and further improve these results, each company of Santoku’s client base has implemented a three-step training program that includes recommended disaster case studies, VR awareness-raising, and educational material on methods to prevent accidents.

In the technical skills field, the Santoku Corporation has been researching and developing methods since 2015, to decommission nuclear power plants in response to nuclear disaster. The company has also been conducting operational training, as per work regulations and procedures, by leveraging the virtual simulation function of its RiMM solution. The decommissioning work has been steadily progressing using the seamless VR simulator, and new and brilliant solutions are constantly being added, to strengthen the nuclear safety venture.

In the future, the company aspires to enhance its educational tools, by evaluating the character of each person, adjusting sensory reproduction, and building a seamless system that can take into account psychological parameters. The company firmly believes in the significant role that VR has to play, to promote safety education amongst people. To proliferate this belief, the Santoku Corporation continues to develop novel products by integrating medicine, sociology, biology, and engineering.

To expand its footprint globally, the Japanese company has already set up a sales network and comprehensive activities, to further expand its safety technology across its existing development base in Vietnam, and start new bases in ASEAN, North America, Southwest Asia, and Europe. The global product lineup will feature a theme of resilience.

In a world that is rapidly changing, companies need to adapt quickly to changing markets and shift consumer bases to thrive and find solutions to real-world problems. By merging the benefits of new and advanced technology, and empowering people to be prepared in the face of a disaster, Santoku Corporation is a rapidly progressing pioneer in the innovation space.