Kabuku and Honda co-develop a 3D printed vehicle to be exhibited at CEATEC JAPAN 2016 from Tuesday, October 4th.

Kabuku Inc. (head office: Shinjuku, Tokyo; CEO: Masahiko Inada; referred to below as “Kabuku”) and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (head office: Minato, Tokyo; President/CEO: Takahiro Hachigo; referred to below as “Honda”) have jointly developed a vehicle that utilizes 3D printing technology.  It will be exhibited from Tuesday, October 4^th to Friday October 7^th at CEATEC JAPAN 2016 which is held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.

For this joint development, Kabuku took advantage of the “Rinkak Mass Customization Solution” to provide on-demand digital manufacturing of customized products to meet a variety of user needs by offering comprehensive body design, engineering and manufacturing options.

Toshimaya Corp. (head office: Kamakura, Kanagawa; President: Haruhiko Kubota; referred to below as “Toshimaya”) in particular faced a problem of finding a delivery vehicle that could be used for local deliveries and also for economical advertisement.  Kabuku provided them with the jointly developed mass customized vehicle that reflected their individual needs.

The location of the head office of Toshimaya is in Kamakura where there is the challenge of narrow roads in the area for their home delivery business.  They continued to use a standard vehicle there because the development of a promotional vehicle is time consuming and costly. Kabuku was able to provide a mass customized original vehicle by responding to their individual needs for design, engineering and manufacturing by utilizing 3D printers. 

Also, the total development process was shortened to about two months while still offering an original vehicle with reduced time and costs.  By using “Rinkak Mass Customization Solutions”, the project could take advantage of rapid 3D design, a mold-less development process for 3D printers and a digital manufacturing factory network.

Furthermore, the vehicle created from this project will be announced at “CEATEC JAPAN 2016” held at Makuhari Messe from Tuesday, October 4^th to Friday, October 7^th.

Kabuku will continue to implement the development of mass customized products in all areas using “Rinkak Mass Customization Solutions” and taking advantage of its digital manufacturing technology and factory network.

■ “CEATEC JAPAN 2016” Exhibition Overview

Theme: Connecting Society, Creating the Future
Dates： Tuesday, October 4^th to Friday, October 7^th, 2016
１０：００ am - ５：００ pm
Venue： Makuhari Messe, Nakase 2-1, Mihama, Chiba
CEATEC JAPAN official website ＵＲＬ： http://www.ceatec.com/ja/

Honda Booth Location： Hall ２ Booth Number ２S93 （https://www.ceatec.com/ja/exhibition/detail.html?id=6812）

Panel discussion： A panel discussion with external experts on the theme “Transforming manufactured goods into good experiences – Open innovation and mass customization”.

■ About Rinkak

Rinkak is the brand name of the digital manufacturing marketplace and 3D printing services offered by Kabuku Inc.

■About Kabuku Inc.

Kabuku Inc. (http://www.kabuku.co.jp) develops products and services that fuse hardware, software and design with core digital fabrication technology. “Rinkak Business (https://www.rinkak-services.com/ja/business/)” offers 3D printing technology solutions to corporate clients, supports activities of digital creators around the world and has been involved in advanced technology research with industry, government and academia.

　In 2014 Kabuku joined in a business partnership with Dentsu and has worked with Toyota, Olympus, Microsoft, Square Enix, Loft, Conran Shop, Calpis, Fuji TV, TBS and Hakuhodo. In addition, “Rinkak Factory (https://www.rinkak-services.com/ja/factory/)” provides business critical cloud services for manufacturing factories using 3D printers and “Rinkak 3D Printing Manufacturing Management Service（Rinkak 3D Printing  MMS）(https://www.3dprinting-mms.com/ja/)” offers a partner program to contract 3d printed manufacturing work from customers around the world.


Oct 5,2016/By Masafumi Asakura