Tetsuya Kawai | CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.- User's Voice| TranTixxii - Material transcending ages: Superior material properties and Elegance

Tetsuya Kawai
Senior General Manager, Engineering Headquarters and Executive Managing Officer, CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.

“Challenging to create something from nothing as we develop the norms of tomorrow's world.”

Tetsuya Kawai
Senior General Manager, Engineering Headquarters and Executive Managing Officer, CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.

1990 Graduated from the Machine Control Engineering Course of the Department of Technology at Tokyo University of Technology and joined CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.
2019 Senior General Manager, Timepiece Product Development Unit, Product Development Headquarters and Executive Officer
2021 Senior General Manager, Engineering Headquarters and Executive Managing Officer
Born in Tokyo

Starting with Japan’s first compact all-electric calculator, Casio has been developing the norms of tomorrow's world through its unique products.
Supported by all generations as the one and only tough watch brand, G-SHOCK has been creating even a culture that goes beyond creating valuable products, setting trends in the fields of sports, fashion, and art.
In 2020, Casio adopted the latest menu of the designing titanium TranTixxii, “White Titanium” for the luxury flagship model of G-SHOCK for the first time in the world. We are continuing to challenge for the norms of tomorrow's world without being content with the already established solid brand value.

■Introduction of the company

Casio is an electronics manufacturer engaged in businesses, such as the production of consumer products, including timepieces, calculators, electronic musical instruments, and electronic dictionaries and provision of solutions for corporate customers. In its largest core business, timepieces, the company develops a wide lineup of timepiece products including “G-SHOCK,” one of the most famous watch brands in the world, in the fashion, sports, and other fields. The company is also working on smartwatch in this business. As for calculators, the business of which was started by the founder of the company, Casio has been developing general-purpose office calculators and dedicated calculators specialized for specific tasks, as well as scientific calculators, which are introduced for education in countries over the world.

In recent years, by leveraging the development capabilities for wearable devices and the know-how of sensing technology it has cultivated, Casio is expanding further to offer a personal coaching service for runners “Runmetrix” developed in co-creation with Asics Corporation as well as medical cameras using digital camera technology.

■Journey of Casio up to now and its philosophy

CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD. was founded by the four Kashio brothers in 1957. In the age in which there were only abacuses and hand-operated calculators requiring complicated operation, the company commercialized the world’s first compact completely electric calculator “14-A” and offered computers that allowed anyone to easily carry out calculations.

Thereafter, under the philosophy of “Creativity and Contribution,” which expresses the company's commitment to contributing to society by offering the kind of original, Casio has sent out into the world a range of products including, the “Casio Mini,” the world’s first personal calculator (1972), the “CASIOTRON” electronic wristwatch featuring automatic calendar for the first time in the world (1974), and the “Casiotone 201” electronic keyboard (1980).

The “G-SHOCK,” the first shock resistant watch developed in 1983 by Kikuo Ibe by putting the company’s philosophy, “Creativity and Contribution,” into practice, broke the conventional wisdom that a watch is a delicate ornament and created a watch that can be used for any scene in daily life.

■Journey of CASIO DESIGN up to now and its philosophy

Casio’s basic policy for development is to create the one-of-a-kind value with unique design and technology and then to acquire loyal users of the Casio brand.

We use a design approach called, CASIO UNIQUE, comprising four development philosophies to carry out design work.

１． humorous: Develop a concept that makes customers smile.
２． make sense: Express functionality in a form to create an iconic style.
３． tasteful: Develop CMF* according to the taste of users to please Casio fans.
４． touch feeling: Create a design that provides ease of use, comfort for use, and good feelings.
　　* CMF: color, material, and finish

■Encounter with the TranTixxii brand and feelings for it

Nippon Steel has already been supporting Casio’s timepiece business by stably supplying high quality pure titanium materials for our OCEANUS timepiece brand.

When the two companies had the same “desire to engage in something new” in 2014, the development of the new titanium alloy (Super-TIX 20AFG) started. Overcoming numerous hurdles on the road, the alloy developed is a result of our development efforts, which were aimed at realizing workability, hardness, specularity, and whiteness that are equivalent to those of stainless steel while leveraging the lightweight and corrosion resistance of titanium. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the crystallization of such efforts.

I remember that I myself visited Nippon Steel’s Research & Engineering (RE) Center in Futtsu City in the middle of the development for meetings.
I am truly glad that the material for which I have such personal feelings is now released to the world as a product and well received.

■Future activities / What we expect from the TranTixxii brand

The new titanium alloy that Nippon Steel has developed is a wonderful material with properties that are kind to the skin and have decorative appeal.
The material was born from careful attention to details and the passion for development that is unique to a Japanese manufacturer, and in that sense I hope it will be used across the world.

From such perspective, we plan to use this material to enhance our product lineup so that our customers would further be pleased by that.

We would be happy if Nippon Steel would apply the material to many products for purposes other than timepieces to promote the appeal of a Japan brand’s greatness.

User’s voice