Suggesting ideas with colleagues who have diverse areas of specialty, to create devices with never-before-seen added value. We have infinite possibilities in development of devices for RRP*.

Only one year after entering, I was on the frontlines of the first RRP* device development project designed by the JT Group.

After my university graduation from the Department of Electronic Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, I became affiliated with a dispatch company for heavy industry engineers. I subsequently became involved with work such as circuit design for FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays) in devices for optical communications networks and mobile telephone base stations. Up to this point my work consistently had the form of technical dispatching, but I wanted to become involved with a more upstream stage of product development such as concept design, so in 2018 I entered the JT Group as an employee with prior experience. I am currently responsible for a role as task leader in electrical design related to Ploom X devices.

When I entered this company, Ploom S which was the first version of heated tobacco products (hereafter HTP) was in the stage of final prototyping before the start of manufacturing. Although the number of employees responsible for electrical equipment design has now increased, at that time there were only a few stationed in the R&D Group, so the first version of Ploom S was being developed as a collaborative project with a partner company. I was in charge of product evaluation, but even though I still did not have a good understanding of matters such as design concepts, I frequently visited our partner company and held meetings until late at night every day. From the second version of Ploom S, the design was conducted by the JT Group and I was responsible for the electrical area. In mid-2019 I was assigned to the development of Ploom X, which I am currently still involved with.

The Ploom X is the first device to be designed by the JT Group itself. Compared to the development of Ploom S, which was developed together with a partner company,
the number of required tasks has increased significantly. On the other hand, in-house development is challenging work where I can apply the expertise I have cultivated up to this point, but more than anything else, it makes it possible to proceed with commercialization while staying in line with the original concepts and technology of the JT R&D Group. Incidentally, even at the time of establishment of the Ploom X concept, a project’s structure for development was not sufficiently arranged within our company, and among its issues was a severe lack of personnel. This meant that there were only a small number of software engineers available, a situation which is inconceivable for an electronics manufacturer. Even in such conditions, we proceeded with development while searching about blindly regarding matters such as the preparation of software specifications, design of hardware, and procedures for team structures and tasks, but somehow we made it through to completion.

*Reduced-Risk Products: Products with the potential to reduce health-related risks associated with smoking

Collaboration with members from diverse backgrounds can lead to growth as an engineer.

The JT R&D Group includes members from highly diverse backgrounds. At the electronics manufacturer I was previously employed at, most of the engineers were from electrical or mechanical fields, but the R&D Group includes diverse personnel from fields such as chemistry and agriculture, so as an employee hired with prior experience it was a fresh new perspective for me. Now that development of the Ploom X has settled down, I am involved in the seeds of research for development of our next RRP*. As part of my duties, I also perform work that is similar to a chemistry experiment, where I do things like mixing and heating reagents, tasks which I would have been highly unlikely to do in the electronics industry. I am acutely aware that absorbing the unique specialized knowledge, information, and culture of a tobacco manufacturer will lead to great personal growth. Going on overseas business trips for technical collaboration with the JT International has also been a source of many valuable experiences. I am not very good at English, so I need to try even harder from here on!

The device development for RRP* gives me a feeling of tremendous motivation as an engineer. One of the issues that must be overcome when designing electric circuits and boards is the development of countermeasures against heat. When large amounts of electric power are handled and high-speed signals are processed, heat will inevitably be produced, but the devices for RRP*, and especially devices for HTP, must be made compact in size as products even though high heat is generated by them. This trade-off raises the difficulty of development, but overcoming such challenges while cooperating with personnel members responsible for areas such as mechanism design and heater design also makes the work much more interesting.

*Reduced-Risk Products: Products with the potential to reduce health-related risks associated with smoking

We have infinite possibilities in development of devices for RRP*, I would like develop devices for HTP with high added value.

We have infinite possibilities in development of devices. If we look at other commercial products such as smartwatches, various functions have been added to them together with the advancement of technology. The actual function of RRP* devices is to heat tobacco, but I believe they can be supplemented with additional functions and added value to bring even more enjoyment to consumers. For example, by utilizing sensing technology, it is technologically possible to add functions that would be useful in many areas of daily life and enrich a user’s actual lifestyle, and there are many potential ideas to do so. I previously mentioned that there was a lack of personnel in our company, but now many software engineers have entered and even in terms of manpower, the number of scientific areas that we can cover is expanding. The JT Group has assembled members with highly diverse backgrounds, so it should be able to make various attempts that bring together each of their different ideas and specialized knowledge.

I entered the JT Group in mid-career, but if I take a step back and consider that they who had previously researched and developed cigarettes has now developed electrical devices which are completely different products, it is an astonishing achievement. I believe that the R&D Group has a culture of taking on new challenges even in unexplored fields where it has no prior know-how.

From my viewpoint as an employee hired with prior experience, there are many friendly people of exceptional character in the JT Group. I also feel that since it still has just started out in RRP* development and does not have much history in this field, it has fewer fixed ideas than major general electronics manufacturers, so it is a workplace where innovative ideas are continually incorporated. I believe that to anyone who wants to use tobacco as a platform to create plans for reaching new results, it is a workplace that can offer great motivation and work satisfaction.

*Reduced-Risk Products: Products with the potential to reduce health-related risks associated with smoking