Keyence
Encyclopedia
is a company which produces sensors, barcode readers, vision systems, measuring equipment and digital microscopes.

Global

Keyence Corporation is a global company with a network of 16 international organizations that specializes in factory automation
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

. Founded in Japan in 1974, Keyence Corporation earns over 2 billion dollars in yearly sales and employs nearly 3000 employees worldwide.

Direct Sales

Keyence is a direct sales company; salespeople visit customers on site with demonstration cases to show products.

Keyence's sensors, vision systems, and high definition microscopes are part of the manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...

 and research processes in a variety of industries, including the electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

, semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...

, automotive, food and packaging, biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...

, and pharmaceutical industries. Keyence's customers include companies ranging from the largest Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

 manufacturers to niche suppliers.

JustSystems

On April 3, 2009, JustSystems Corporation
JustSystems
is a major Japanese software development house. The company is also known as "JustSystem." Its main products are Ichitaro , a word processor, and Hanako, a graphics package that remains competitive in the Japanese market, despite strong and controversial competitive pressures from Microsoft in the...

, a major Japanese software development house, announced that it would increase the capital by allocating new shares to Keyence. Effective on April 20, 2009, Keyence became the largest shareholder (43.96%) of JustSystems.

Trivia


  • Keyence was named one of BusinessWeek
    BusinessWeek
    Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...

    s “1000 Best Valued Companies.”
  • Keyence Japan is consistently listed in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun
    Nihon Keizai Shimbun
    is one of the largest media corporations in Japan. Nikkei specializes in publishing financial, business and industry news. Its main news publications include:* Nihon Keizai Shimbun , a leading economic newspaper....

    's yearly ranking of the "Top Ten Most Excellent Companies in Japan." Keyence is known as one of the best "pay" companies in Japan. The average annual wage for all full-time employees (average age: 31.9 years old) in FY2006 was JPY13,860,000 (US$117,348 as of March 2007).
  • A 350-million-year-old ammonite fossil is displayed at the entrance of the Japanese headquarters; other fossils of long-dead creatures align the corridors and meeting rooms. Relics are supposed to convey a tacit message to employees: keep aiming high or you'll become a fossil.
  • Takemitsu Takizaki founded Keyence Corporation in 1974 under the original name of "Lead Electric."
  • Takizaki is listed as the 428th richest person in the world in 2008 by Forbes with a net worth of US$2.7 billion.
  • Keyence is fabless (fabrication-less): Although Keyence is a manufacturer; it specializes solely in product planning and development and does not manufacture the final products. Keyence products are manufactured at qualified contract manufacturing companies.
  • Stephen Way, Senior Vice-President and Global Portfolio Manager at AGF Funds Inc.: "Keyence has a proven ability to deliver innovative products that customers want and this is driving strong pricing and profitability."
  • The Financial Times: “Keyence means little to most people; to engineers, however, they mean a great deal.”

Products

Keyence manufactures a broad range of products, from photoelectric and proximity sensors to measuring instruments for inspection lines to high precision microscopy devices used in research institutes. These products are used by more than 80,000 customers globally.

Products are shipped from Keyence's stocking network centers in Japan, U.S. (Chicago), the UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea or from 148 agents in 31 countries on the same day of receipt of an order.

Automation & Sensing

Keyence's customers in a variety of industries and manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...

 environments use their sensor products to detect the presence or absence of an entire part or just a particular feature of that part. Measurement products are used to determine the size or magnitude of a particular part or feature with great accuracy. New product releases consistently account for 30% of Keyence's annual sales.
  • Fiber Optic Sensors (FS Series)
  • Photoelectric Sensors (PX Series)
  • Laser Displacement Sensor (LK Series)
  • Safety Light Curtain (SL Series)

Vision & Marking

Vision system products are camera systems used on production lines to differentiate and measure multiple product features. Keyence's customers use their camera systems to perform quality control inspections that are too complicated for ordinary sensors. Their laser marking instruments use a high intensity laser to permanently and accurately mark shapes or characters onto surfaces such as metals or plastics at high speeds.
  • Machine Vision (XG Series)
  • Machine Vision (CV Series)
  • Laser Marker (ML Series)
  • Laser Marker (MD Series)

Advanced Microscopes

Microscopes are the only products offered by Keyence America for use away from a production line. While many of the customers for their microscopes are manufacturers, these microscopes are more typically used for research and development or failure analysis applications. Keyence Digital Microscopes are capable of displaying a 3D
Three-dimensional space
Three-dimensional space is a geometric 3-parameters model of the physical universe in which we live. These three dimensions are commonly called length, width, and depth , although any three directions can be chosen, provided that they do not lie in the same plane.In physics and mathematics, a...

 image of the target. The image can also be manipulated or used to make a measurement of the target feature being viewed. Their color laser scanning microscope offers high accuracy with the use of a violet laser. This laser microscope approaches the accuracy and resolution of an SEM microscope
Scanning electron microscope
A scanning electron microscope is a type of electron microscope that images a sample by scanning it with a high-energy beam of electrons in a raster scan pattern...

 at a lower cost and without destroying the target.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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