Near-Future Design

Developing Technology Not Simply for the Sake of Technology Development but for a Better Future
To expedite technology development, it is vital that we have a clear picture of the near future and set specific goals for ourselves.

As we work to solve social issues, OMRON does not take the conventional forecasting approach only, which foresees future trends by assuming the continuation of existing businesses. In addition, we closely monitor all sorts of signs of change by structurally designing a near future, say, three to seven years from now, from the perspectives of business, technology, and intellectual property, and then take a backcasting approach from there to determine the goals of technology development.
When designing a near future, we follow the SINIC (Seed-Innovation to Need-Impetus Cyclic Evolution) Theory to catch the signs of change that might occur in the future in the context of science, technology, and society. Recent years have seen dynamic changes taking place in the social environment, initiated by AI (artificial intelligence), robotics, and other disruptive technologies.
We set our vision of the near future that we wish to achieve as a “flag.” By developing technologies that help us to reach this “flag,” we seek to realize near-future innovation driven by social needs.