Epson's Global President visits Australia and shares his vision for the future

Craig Heckenberg, Managing Director, Epson Australia,  Mr Yasunori Ogawa Epson Global President

Epson's Global President, Mr Yasunori Ogawa, has visited Australia to help commemorate and celebrate Epson Australia's 40th anniversary. 

Mr Ogawa has a long and distinguished career with Epson in roles that strongly focus on technology and product development. Upon joining Epson in 1988, Mr Ogawa's first task was to design image sensors for fax machines. He then moved to the projector business, where he was part of the team responsible for commercialising Epson's business projector. He then spent several years building the Visual Products Division before being appointed COO in 2017. In 2018 Mr Ogawa was appointed Chief Technology Officer, responsible for Epson's R&D and Manufacturing Technology. He was appointed President in April 2020.

In an interview with Mr Ogawa, Image Magazine asked about some of Epson's R&D initiatives. My Ogawa explained, "We are aiming to become underground resource-free, which doesn't mean totally eliminating metal from our products; we are aiming to introduce more recycled plastics and new materials, which we are developing ourselves."

"An example of such a material is Paper Lab, which uses a technology called dry fibre technology, which defibrates paper with minimal water usage. It doesn't just recycle old paper into new paper; you can make it into a sponge-like substance for use in packaging. You can also harden it to make it into a plastic-like substance. It is still under development, but we aim to develop and use more of these types of products in our manufacturing in the future."

"We have a company in Japan called Epson Admix that makes metal powder, which can be used to make electronic components, metal moulds and the substance used in 3D printing. We also want to develop this product further to create components for our products."

"We want to make our products more environmentally friendly and more compact, using fewer materials to manufacture, which will reduce the cost. All while retaining the quality and accuracy and making the machines last longer."

"We are developing other applications for our printheads, expanding from printing on paper, substrates and fabrics to different industrial applications, including wiring on LCD and OLED panels, PCBs and flexible cables.

"We would like our customers in Australia and New Zealand to understand that Epson is extremely focused on sustainability, and our technological innovation is focused on what we call efficient, compact, precise technologies that are naturally good for the environment," concludes Mr Ogawa.

Craig Heckenberg, Managing Director, explained that in his time as President, Mr Ogawa has been focused on instilling the company's purpose and creating an open-minded corporate culture. "He is very much of the belief that as Epson employees, we should all understand the issues of our customers and the issues that society is facing so that we can bring those insights back into the business and use our R&D expertise, technology and our skills to overcome those challenges. Not only with our customers but in society and industry today."