21 Feb 2018 from Newsweek.com

Just shy of its 100th anniversary, Satake has used a century of operations to create a highly successful blend of experience and innovation in order to become Japan’s number one industrial mixing company.

Since its establishment in 1920, Satake has cemented its place as one of Asia’s top manufacturers of mixers, as well as also becoming a pioneer in environmental testing equipment technology.

For almost a century, SATAKE has continuously maintained the top share in Japan’s mixing sec-tor – a specialist industry that provides services and apparatus for diverse fields such as food, medicine and chemistry – and has continued to exhibit success in various production scenarios across the world, establishing bases in Korea, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand.

President of Satake, Mitsutoshi Nishioka, attributes much of the company’s modern-day achievements and impressive expansion to its laboratory specializing in mixing technology, the first one in Asia, which was initially established back in 1987.

“Since then, we have expanded – including joint ventures – in Asia and developed our business into South East Asia as well,” he says. “Our basic philosophy is that unless we have expertise in a specific field, we cannot lead the joint venture or establish overseas business locally. That’s why we specialize in mixing technology. Therefore, making such a laboratory was crucial to our expansion, as mixing technology supports almost every type of industry and company.”

Indeed, while the concept of mixing is simple – the process of combing two or more different qualities to form one substance or mass – depending on the size of the job, the materials involved, and the type of industry that requires it, then mixing can be a specialist job requiring sophisticated equipment. And this is where Satake has come into its own, providing mixing solutions for almost every sector you can think of: from paints and water treatment to breweries and energy generation. Satake’s largest business share, however, can be found in the chemical and fine chemical field.

“In these areas, the most important matter we are requested to look into is the balance between safety and quality. Our ability to provide the most appropriate and efficient high-level mixing technology is the most important concern for us,” explains Mr. Nishioka.

“Other areas such as the food industry, water treatment, or garbage recycling, have asked us for many types of mixing techniques. We develop different technologies for each industry’s needs. How
to address these concerns is important to us, so we do a test for every customer and develop the most appropriate method based on their requirements.”

Having started out as a mixer manufacturer, Satake has additionally moved into the area of environment testing equipment; technology that performs performance testing of industrial products at a high accuracy.

“The objective was to add a technical essence, making our products more profitable and more unique. That’s why we selected to develop both mixing machines and environment testing machines. Bio-reactors are an extension of these technologies, too” says Mr. Nishioka, referring to Satake’s third major business line.

In the field of bio-reactors, Sa-take offers a range of solutions from small-scale laboratory equipment and pilot machines to large-scale production machines in order to undertake the optimum commercial production and industrialization in the field of cell cultures.

“Technologically speaking, it is easy to get into the bioreactor market, but there are giants in the industry that we cannot copy or replicate. That’s why we put another essence into these technologies,” says the Satake president, proudly underlining that its “3D floating iPS cell differentiation induction bioreactor is one of the only animal cell reactors worldwide”.

Looking forward to the company’s centenary in just over a year’s time, Mr. Nishioka state’s that the ideal anniversary gift would be to further establish Satake’s top market position, with perhaps another new business venture [for example, a newly developed item, highly precise wet process classifier or two providing the perfect icing on the cake.

“If I had to talk about an objective for 2020, we would like to be the number one in Asia for mixer technology and environment testing equipment,” he says. “As we are developing a reactor for iPS animal cells it would also be good if we could launch an in-house venture or allow another company to use this technology. That would be a wonderful way to bring in our 100th anniversary.”

“Our ability to provide the most appropriate and efficient high-level mixing technology is the most important concern for us”

Mitsutoshi Nishioka, President of Satake

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