Product innovation

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  • CONCEPT MOVIECONCEPT MOVIE
  • INNOVATION TIMELINE TANITA progress and the health meterINNOVATION TIMELINE TANITA progress and the health meter
  • INNOVATION TIMELINE TANITA progress and the health meterINNOVATION TIMELINE TANITA progress and the health meter
  • BACKGROUND Background of the birth of innovationBACKGROUND Background of the birth of innovation
  • FOR THE FUTUREFOR THE FUTURE

New indexes for the world New indexes for the world

TANITA has been contributing to the evolution
of health promotion by introducing
and spreading
new indexes including those
for body fat percentage
and the visceral
fat level throughout the world.
If we have an index, people can change.
If we have an index, mechanisms
for society can be established.
Thus TANITA continues to introduce
new indexes
that can move the world
: to make the world healthier.

INOVATION TIMELINETANITA progress and the health meter

Established Tanida Karoku Shoten (Store owned and run by Karoku Tanida) 1923

Established Tanida Karoku Shoten
(Store owned and run by Karoku Tanida)

The (then) Ministry of
Health and Welfare started
using the term adult diseases
from around 1955.

Started health meter production 1959

Started health
meter production

Iwaji Tanida, the founder of TANITA, started developing a health meter since he was greatly shocked when he found that each family has a scale, for everyone in the family to weigh themselves, during a visit to the USA.

Commenced digital health meter sales 1978

Japan’s
first!

Commenced digital
health meter sales

The Japan Society For The Study Of
Obesity and others stated that the fat
amount is a problem in the 1980s.

Commenced sales of the body fat scale 1992

World’s
first!

Commenced sales of the body fat scale

Your body fat can be measured simply by standing on
the body fat scale. In addition to weight, a new index
for body fat percentage was created as an obesity
index.

Tomio Sato Untold development story of body fat percentage

1992 Commenced sales of the body fat scale

Untold development story
Person in charge of development
Tomio Sato

Just try!
The development of the body fat scale was entrusted to a man in his first year of employment.

Tomio Sato

Obesity was once judged by how much you weigh. On one occasion, the then president listened to a medical specialist saying that obesity means that you have too much fat on you, not that you weigh too much. That made him issue a development order for an instrument to measure body fat for his employees. This was not a major theme but simply started as a training theme for new employees like me. I remember being bemused and thinking that I would just try while knowing I was new there. At that time, underwater weighing was the only way to measure fat accurately, but the method was laborious and time-consuming. Days of trial and error started since we needed to make it simple like a scale. The measuring method I finally established was a method to derive an estimated value of the fat amount by utilizing the characteristics of fat that conduct very little electricity. Since human body data for a wide range of ages and physical constitutions was required to create a calculation formula for deriving an estimated value, I worked hard to collect them every day. Finally, the world’s first body fat scale was successfully developed in 1992. It was sold to individuals and families and spread the new body fat percentage index around the world.

Underwater weighing

Underwater weighing
Tomio Sato

Hiroki Matsumoto Impact on the world

1992 Commenced sales of the body fat scale

Impact on the world
Person in charge of sales
Hiroki Matsumoto

People’s health awareness started to change drastically as the body fat percentage index spread.

Hiroki Matsumoto

The very first body fat scale released was for business use and was very expensive, costing 485,000 yen. However, it was highly regarded concerning usability because body fat could be measuring by simply standing on the body fat scale; medical facilities including university research institutes and health examination centers welcomed it. Soon after, the body fat scale became popular after products for family use were released in the price range between 20,000 and 30,000 yen. Simultaneously, the term body fat percentage rapidly spread out. As use of the body fat scale became widespread, health goods such as pedometers and dumbbells came into the spotlight since exercises for reducing body fat started to attract people's attention. When I saw a health goods section set up in a shop, I was surprised at how fast the trend to respond to body fat was. People’s health awareness started to drastically change.

Hiroki Matsumoto

Clinics and practitioners started to
use the body fat scale
TV programs often introduced the
body fat scale

People started to recognize
the importance of body fat in
obesity

Commenced sales of health meters equipped with body fat scales for family use 1994

World’s
first!

Commenced sales of health
meters equipped with body fat
scales for family use

Body fat scale popularization
A flood of inquiries from
consumers

The era of healthy diets

Changing from adult diseases
to lifestyle diseases

1999

WHO announced diagnostic
criteria using the term
metabolic syndrome

From the treatment era
to the prevention era

Many TV programs and newspapers introduced the product and visceral fat was broadly recognized as a criterion for health status. 2001

World’s
first!

Released InnerScan - the body fat scale equipped with a visceral fat meter

Many TV programs and newspapers introduced the product and
visceral fat was broadly recognized as a criterion for health status.

Miyuki Nishizawa Untold development story of the visceral fat level

2001 Released InnerScan- the body fat scale equipped with a visceral fat meter

Untold development story
Person in charge of development
Miyuki Nishizawa

Visceral fat level was the expression we decided on to familiarize people with it.

Miyuki Nishizawa

In around 1992 we released the body fat scale and research showing that visceral fat increases the risk of diseases the most among the fats in the belly, which came to draw much attention from specialists. Under this influence, the development of the visceral fat meter started as a mission with our company’s highest priority. The area calculation was to be applied to the visceral fat meter whereas the density calculation was for the body fat scale. Many analyses were made over and over while considering a variety of possibilities. The total number of people whose body data were collected for this development was 764. We now have body data for more than 100,000 people. Discussion on how we could deliver the product to customers became quite lively when the release date of the product was getting closer. Visceral fat level was the expression we concluded on then. We decided to suggest an index that users could easily understand but not to indicate an estimated area value as a concrete numeric value. Since this suggestion was approved of, we could have introduced an easy-to-understand index and released a product that enables measurement with this index.

Miyuki Nishizawa

Akira Uchikoshi Impact on the world

2001 Released InnerScan- the body fat scale equipped with a visceral fat meter

Impact on the world
Person in charge of sales
Akira Uchikoshi

New product familiarization triggered people to change their health awareness.

Akira Uchikoshi

Nobody even seemed to care when the product was released in the beginning. So, we implemented promotions at stores to familiarize the public with the product as well as conducting sales activities at various locations to enable people to recognize what visceral fat was. The CT scanner was then the only machine that could measure visceral fat. However, the visceral fat level can be easily checked at home. This was the major point that enabled customers to easily purchase the InnerScan. As the product became familiar to people, sales increased as well as inquiries from customers on visceral fat. The term metabolic syndrome appeared. Many TV programs and newspapers covered this; the visceral fat level became one trigger that changed people’s health awareness.

Akira Uchikoshi
Released InnerScan- the body composition monitor for family use 2003

Released InnerScan- the body
composition monitor for family use

2006

Metabolic syndrome
selected as a buzzword

2008

Special health check-up
focusing on metabolic
syndrome started

The muscle quality score was announced. Today, the evaluation of muscle quality by area is available. As some athletes started to use this index to improve their performance, this index is becoming familiar to the public. 2015

World’s
first!

Announced a new index - muscle quality score

The muscle quality score was announced. Today, the
evaluation of muscle quality by area is available. As
some athletes started to use this index to improve
their performance, this index is becoming familiar to
the public.

Tomoka Uchiyama Untold development story of muscle quality score

2015 Announced a new index - muscle quality score

Untold development story
Person in charge of development
Tomoka Uchiyama

New concept for muscles is visualizing muscle quality, not quantity.

Tomoka Uchiyama

This new index originated from an event that I was really concerned about when I was working as part of a national research program on incurable diseases. It was then commonly accepted that the amount of muscles was proportional to muscular strength. However, some events that could not be explained by changes or differences in the amount of muscles occurred. For example, the amount of muscles of some middle-aged or elderly people who used to exercise were not decreasing even though their muscular strength was actually weakening. During discussions with experts while thinking about the electric characteristics together, we concluded that the reason may be muscle quality. From that point, our development focused on muscle quality evaluation and we were determined to create an index. However, converting this mystifying concept into a simple one that could be explained in plain language was very difficult. After many arguments inside and outside of my department, an idea to express it with a score-type index that is easy to understand was realized, but not with simple numeric values. Thus, the world’s first body composition monitor that can display muscle quality score was created.

Tomoka Uchiyama

Shunsuke Tomimasu Impact on the world

2015 Announced a new index - muscle quality score

Impact on the world
Person in charge of advertising
Shunsuke Tomimasu

Introducing the index recognized in the sports field to more people.

Shunsuke Tomimasu

I sensed a certain reaction in evaluating the novel index since around 70 press members gathered for the press release of the world’s first index for muscle quality. After that, models that could check body parts such as the muscle quality of both arms or both legs were released. We received many inquiries about them from people in sports and these models were used to manage athlete training and conditioning. We actually heard from athletes that it changed their perception of muscles or that it changed their training methods. Muscle quality score can also exert its potential even for the body development or health management of ordinary people. For example, since muscle quality changes frequently, it can be useful even for women and the elderly, who have difficulties in increasing their muscles and maintaining motivation to continue exercising. Therefore, from now on, we’d also like to focus on promotions to have many more people know what muscle quality score is.

Shunsuke Tomimasu
TANITA progress and the health meter

INNOVATION TIMELINE TANITA progress and the health meter

1923Established Tanida Karoku Shoten (Store owned and run by Karoku Tanida)
The (then) Ministry of Health and Welfare started using the term adult diseases from around 1955.
1959Started health meter production Iwaji Tanida, the founder of TANITA, started developing a health meter since he was greatly shocked when he found that each family has a scale, for everyone in the family to weigh themselves, during a visit to the USA.
1978 Commenced digital health meter sales
The Japan Society For The Study Of Obesity and others stated that the fat amount is a problem in the 1980s.
1992 Commenced sales of the body fat scale Your body fat can be measured simply by standing on the body fat scale. In addition to weight, a new index for body fat percentage was created as an obesity index.

Untold development story of body fat percentage

Impact on the world

Clinics and practitioners started to use the body fat scale TV programs often introduced the body fat scale
People started to recognize the importance of body fat in obesity
1994 Commenced sales of health meters equipped with body fat scales for family use Body fat scale popularizationA flood of inquiries from consumers The era of healthy diets Changing from adult diseases to lifestyle diseases
1999 WHO announced diagnostic criteria using the term metabolic syndrome From the treatment era to the prevention era
2001 Released InnerScan - the body fat scale equipped with a visceral fat meter Many TV programs and newspapers introduced the product and visceral fat was broadly recognized as a criterion for health status.

Untold development story of the visceral fat level

Impact on the world

2003 Released InnerScan- the body composition monitor for family use
2006 Metabolic syndrome selected as a buzzword
2008 Special health check-up focusing on metabolic syndrome started
2015 Special health check-up focusing on metabolic syndrome started The muscle quality score was announced. Today, the evaluation of muscle quality by area is available. As some athletes started to use this index to improve their performance, this index is becoming familiar to the public.

Untold development story of muscle quality score

Impact on the world

TANITA progress and the health meter
BACKGROUND Background of the birth of innovation BACKGROUND Background of the birth of innovation

BACKGROUND Background of the birth of innovation

Corporate culture that sees change as good.

Corporate culture that sees change as good. Corporate culture that sees change as good.

Our corporate culture saying that we see change as good and remain a company that admires and leads change is rooted in TANITA. This is traditional and has never changed from the time we started manufacturing health meters. All employees are facing their jobs, always having the mindset to work on projects different from before and evolve through new challenges.

Corporate culture that sees change as good.
Corporate culture that sees change as good.
Corporate culture that sees change as good.
Corporate culture that sees change as good.
Every single employee is a person of ideas.

Every single employee is a person of ideas. Every single employee is a person of ideas.

Seeds for product ideas spring forth from the development department and everywhere in our company. For example, new plans sometimes come from sales teams when they think from the point of view closest to customers, while asking themselves what makes a product useful to customers. This flexible form of organization is one background that can produce innovation. Many functions have been invented thanks to salespeople bringing ideas back to the company.

Every single employee is a person of ideas.
Every single employee is a person of ideas.

Flatter organization enabling frank conversations without any barriers. Flatter organization enabling frank conversations without any barriers.

TANITA has introduced a free office seating plan so that every worker can freely select their desired seat at the office without having assigned seats. Communication between workers is active regardless of the department or the job description. Exchanges of frank opinions and heated discussions are ordinary occurrences here, generating ideas for new products.

Flatter organization enabling frank conversations without any barriers.
Flatter organization enabling frank conversations without any barriers.
Flatter organization enabling frank conversations without any barriers.
Flatter organization enabling frank conversations without any barriers.

FOR THE FUTURE

President and Representative DirectorSenri Tanida President and Representative DirectorSenri Tanida

We’d like to continue contributing to make the world healthy as a total health company.

At TANITA, we will measure anything and everything useful for your health. The term body fat percentage became common because TANITA developed the first body fat scale in the world. Today, we can easily measure our visceral fat level, bone mass and muscle mass. Our awareness has changed since measurements became available. We are now planning to contribute to make the world healthy in more ways, moving beyond measuring the human body.

President and Representative Director
Senri Tanida

FOR THE FUTURE FOR THE FUTURE
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