The 21st century has thrust us fully into globalization and the information age, and world is now a single interconnected market. Today, anyone can easily obtain a variety of products and services across national borders.
Global manufacturing trends have followed suit. Under the 20th century model, we either mass-produced identical goods for maximum efficiency or made goods individually so that they would be distinctive and unique. In the 21st century, we've merged manufacturing and IT operations to turn out highly individualized items with all the efficiency of mass production.
In the automotive industry, for example, we're rapidly moving towards module-based production and IoT. Modularization allows automakers to produce a large variety of models while boosting mass production efficiency for a system that enables anything to be produced at any plant-while IoT technology allows manufacturers to make sophisticated demand estimates on the production side, analyze production management, and more. Meanwhile on the user end, automated driving technologies are fast becoming a reality.
In order to keep up with these trends in the industry, Citizen Machinery must also propose innovative manufacturing solutions that use information and communications technology to achieve two goals that were once at odds: customization and mass-production efficiency. We call it "Ko No Ryosan".
Our low-frequency vibration (LFV) cutting technology eliminates chip entanglement during the machining process, while our MC 20 Multi Station Machining Cell integrates three single-axis lathes into a single unit. Both are examples of unprecedented, innovative technologies developed from the "Ko No Ryosan" concept. They have also been met with widespread acclaim, receiving awards from trade journals both at home and abroad.
We also offer alkaapplysolution, a collection of diverse strategies that tap into the power of IoT and our wealth of technical knowledge to overcome our customers' challenges.
Citizen Machinery will continue to offer innovative manufacturing solutions that support customer safety and growth while contributing to the development of the global manufacturing industry as a whole. Rest assured, we will continue to take up fresh and even greater challenges in the months and years ahead.