POWDER METALLURGY IN JAPAN

Starting from the 'Lehman Shock" in 2008, the Japanese industry had difficult years not only because of the global recession, but also other large disasters: the Great East Japan Earthquake and following tsunami, which resulted in the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011. In October of the same year, a serious flood in Thailand devastated overseas factories of Japanese companies. These challenging situations affected the Japanese economy, especially automotive companies. Since Japanese PM companies mostly depend on the automotive companies, the economic difficulty in the automotive industry resulted in the same difficulty in the PM field. The recent improvement of economic circumstances has, however, had a positive impact on the PM industry. Japanese production of PM parts in 2012 was 100,385 mt, which was close to the level before 2008. In this review, Japanese industrial PM companies are introduced, and this is followed by the introduction of Japanese academic research organizations, such as universities and national institutes.