[Priority Issue 1]Contribute to Creating a Safe and Secure Society

In modern society, the risks that can threaten people's lives have diversified. Newly arising issues, such as Internet crime, spread along with the rapid advancement of the information society, careless digital data management, and the deterioration of infrastructure are some of these risks. The Fujifilm Group continues to develop and disseminate new technologies that address such ever-changing social risks to minimize their possible damage. In concrete, we are contributing to building a safe and secure society by offering secure means of digital data storage over a long period of time in this big data era, improving information security, and helping to maintain the infrastructure.

[Target] Aim at 100% preservation of records archived on tapes

• Received the Prime Minister's Awards under the 7th Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award (hosted by METI, MLIT, MHLW, and MEXT) in recognition as the “large-capacity data tape with outstanding performance in total user costs, an achievement bolstering the era of big data and IoT.” (Fujifilm)

[Target] Shorten the inspection periods of deterioration and malfunctioning through providing a non-destructive inspection system

• Started providing a new Infrastructure Photo Analysis Cloud Service, Hibimikke (Crack Finder, April 2018).

[Other major activities]

• Development of technology for the recognition of unique objects, Yoctrace, which contributes to security reinforcement and counterfeit prevention.
• Launched a camera monitor system (CMS) chart set FC-UNR46SET, in March 2018, which complies with the United Nation regulations for a CMS for a vehicle (UN-R46(*)) to be used in the analysis and verification process of vehicle CMSs. This contributes to safety improvement during driving.

* UN-R46 Uniform provisions concerning the approval of devices for indirect vision and of motor vehicles with regard to the installation of these devices: Regulations concerning an agreement on indirect vision systems in cars. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism enforced the revised regulations in June 2016, to permit replacement of rearview mirrors on vehicles equipped with a CMS. This enabled the production of a completely mirrorless car. Vehicles in Japan can now be equipped with CMSs as defined in UN-R46, in place of conventional rearview mirrors.

Fujifilm received the Prime Minister's Awards under the 7th Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award (Product & Technology Development category) in recognition as the “large-capacity data tape with outstanding performance in total user costs, an achievement bolstering the era of big data and IoT.” Our magnetic tape was the world's first products adopting magnetic Barium Ferrite (BaFe) particles in 2011, making a technological breakthrough with regards to the capacity limitation of magnetic tapes, which was an imminent issue at that time. Since the market introduction of our BaFe-based magnetic tape, which significantly enhanced data storage density, the development of data storage systems that utilize our tape has accelerated. The award presented us this time was due to high appraisal of our precise response to the social need of storing big data, which is increasingly used in society, safely and over a long period of time at a reasonable cost, through our large-capacity magnetic tape that contributes to an overall cost reduction for data storage. It was also in recognition of our leading-edge technology that provided a chance of further capacity enhancement of magnetic tapes for the future.

We will continue to contribute to the safe and long-term storage of important data through further improvement of storage capacities.

Fujifilm has started offering a new Infrastructure Photo Analysis Cloud Service, Hibimikke (Crack Finder), which utilizes the high precision imaging technology we cultivated through our medical diagnostic imaging systems. Many major infrastructures in Japan, such as bridges and tunnels, were built during the high-growth period of the Japanese economy and are now experiencing signs of deterioration. Both national and local governments require regular inspections as well as tightening the details of such inspections. However, conventional inspection methods are highly manual, and are therefore time consuming, and securing inspection experts is a growing issue. Such methods include close visual inspections for cracks and other signs of deterioration by inspection experts who possess advanced techniques and knowhow, making records of such deterioration signs by photographs and illustrations, and converting the photographs and illustrations into digital data to create the relevant reports.

Hibimikke is a cloud service that can automatically photomontage multiple photographs uploaded to a server and detect cracks using image analysis based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Further, it creates a comprehensive dataset concerning the detected cracks. Our service supports human inspection work to halve the conventional working time, while significantly improving working efficiency and inspection precision. Through the Hibimikke service, Fujifilm is contributing to safe and efficient infrastructure maintenance, as well as work style reforms through improved working efficiency.