Supporting the researchers in upstream development.
It is our job to arrange environments that allow colleagues to exhibit their best performance.
R&D Foundation
Kotaro Minami
Operational management of Research Laboratory, support for researchers
Widely varied operational management work to support the Research Laboratory, from labor management to greenhouse gas emission control.
I entered the company as a new graduate, and it is now my second year affiliated with a team responsible for operational management of our Research Laboratory which carries out science research. Our main duties are operational management of the Research Laboratory and support for researchers. These duties consist of work to investigate the operation of the entire Research Laboratory from various viewpoints. They allow the activities of researchers to proceed smoothly, such as through the introduction of new equipment or systems. Our responsibilities vary greatly, and include labor management, operational management of chemical substances and reagents used in research, and disposal of equipment. Since there are residential areas in the vicinity of the Research Laboratory, our duties also include communicating with the local community and providing emergency response in the event of disasters such as earthquakes. The Research Laboratory is different from a general commercial building in that it handles a wide range of chemical substances and materials, and therefore generates by-products including waste materials, so we are responsible for relevant administrative response procedures. Managing greenhouse gas emissions, water usage amounts, and generated waste volume are also part of our duties, in fields related to sustainability such as those specified in the SDGs. To sum up, our work is “behind-the-scenes” work that is difficult to see from the outside.
Back-office work has a unique sense of satisfaction and experiences.
I believe that allowing researchers to work as they want will lead to the highest level of performance. That is why an appropriate research infrastructure must be arranged to accomplish this. What is required of us is to create this foundation for successful research. If researchers can be seen to be at the highest upstream level of the value chain, we are like a dam that supports them. Although we do not directly produce profits, it is because of our work that the Research Laboratory can continue to operate, and if its research goes well, it will provide joy to consumers and lead to profits for the company. The appeal of this work is discovering those connections. We stand behind the research, technology, and product development that is presented to the world. Thinking of our work in this way gives me a unique feeling of excitement. When I first entered our company I didn’t know anything about the work and did not realize these things. However, through my everyday work I began to naturally think more and more about how to have the Research Laboratory operate smoothly, and to have the mechanisms for management operations constantly be updated, while keeping them sustained into the future. It may be precisely because of my work behind the scenes that I was able to gain the viewpoint of looking at and thinking of the big picture, with questions such as “What is efficient operation?”, “What is an organization?”, and “What is society?”
I want to create mechanisms for the entire organization allowing it to constantly update itself even in an age of tremendous change.
In current times where speed is a primary requirement and the best answer for today may not be so tomorrow, it is of course important in business activities for each individual to act quickly, but it also may be just as important to create mechanisms that allow entire organizations to act quickly as well. On one’s own, it is possible to act quickly as long as there is the desire to do so. However, if optimal mechanisms can be created for an organization as a whole, the speed and scale of its businesses can be increased dramatically. It is also critical for these mechanisms to be constantly updated to respond to the unending progress of change. I believe that the goal we should aim for is to create “mechanisms that can continue to improve those very mechanisms.” I still have no concrete concept of what they are, whether they are tools or systems, corporate visions or organizational cultures, or even something completely different, and I believe they will not be anything simple, but it is my desire to create those mechanisms someday.