“The Bridgestone Innovation Park will be the foundation of the next chapter in our company history. We will focus on innovations with this centre, which are meant to contribute to the progress of society and to create new values for our customers, partners and the world around us”, says Masaaki Tsuya, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and Representative Executive Officer of Bridgestone. The Bridgestone Innovation Park is to support flexibility and creativity in order to boost an integrative and connected society in the next decades.
The idea is based on the same philosophy and basic values, which have been making Bridgestone successful in the last 90 years. In the 1960s, Shojiro Ishibashi, the founder of Bridgestone, built the former plant and technology centre of the Japanese high-tech company in Kodaira aiming at the creation of an integrative, active and healthy local society. According to a press release, still today, his commitment to the support of mobility, human beings and environment can be found in several activities and the CSR vision “Our Way to Serve”. Within this framework, Bridgestone will support the way people move, live, work, and spend their leisure time. Thus, it will live up to the year-long company philosophy “Serving Society with Superior Quality.”
The new Kodaira footprint of the company is supposed to implement these values via four different plants, which will together form the Bridgestone Innovation Park. The first plant is to open in June 2020. The Bridgestone Innovation Gallery, which is to be opened in June 2020, is dedicated to the historic and innovative developments of Bridgestone. In November 2021, the introduction of an innovative and cooperative laboratory called B-innovations is meant to follow. At the same time, a facility called B-Mobility, a demonstration and testing plant for the support of product development, is to start operating. According to company information, the Bridgestone AHL Arena, a barrier-free leisure centre will open in March 2022. (kle)
