Why this Japanese company is building ‘anti-overtime’ drones

Photo credit: Blue Innovation

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This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with Disrupting Japan where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with Japanese entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

An idea I’ve talked about a lot is that in Japan, the bulk of meaningful innovation will come not from startups, but from midsize companies. With that, perhaps you won’t be too surprised to learn that Japan’s leading drone company is not a traditional startup, but a nearly 20-year-old midsize company that pivoted into drones from a completely different industry.

I sat down with Takayuki Kumada, founder and CEO of drone integrator Blue Innovation. His company attracted international attention last year with the announcement of their T-Frend drone, which is designed to reduce overtime by flying around the office, taking pictures of staff, and telling them to go home.

In this interview, we talk about how Blue Innovation became a drone company, the T-Frend project, and the future of drones.

nWhat exactly is a drone integrator?n

Being a drone integrator means we manage the hardware, software, and the entire solution. We work with various companies in different industries to sell drone technologies.

nWhat was the company doing back in 1999?n

We were focusing on environmental issues like coastal erosion. We developed the countermeasure against beach erosion and tsunami.

Aerial photographs are very important to understand the cause of a disaster. However, we couldn’t get any right after disasters happened. So, we thought about a possible solution.

In 2006, we researched the technology for how to take aerial photographs. We met with University of Tokyo professor Shinji Suzuki who developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). He helped us with the research, then we eventually developed a coastal monitoring system using a UAV.

nWhen did you pivot to become a drone company?n

The International Civil Aviation Organization has recognized drones as unmanned aircraft systems. Many countries have also adopted the concept by amending their aviation laws. But at the time, the Japanese government did not follow suit.

Meanwhile, many companies, who have quickly adopted the concept of drones, were contacting us, asking about our UAV system. Since this opportunity was larger than the coastal monitoring business (which started to go down three years after we’ve started the company), we decided to focus on the drone business. This was about five years ago.

nTell us about the T-Frend project.n

The T-Frend service is provided by Taisei; Blue Innovation strictly handles the technical side.

The system is designed for staffless office security and reduction of overtime work. The drone patrols an office, takes video footage of what’s there, and encourage people to go home by playing music.

This is more of a Japanese idea. The Japanese are very hardworking, and it’s been difficult for companies across the nation to reduce the amount of overtime employees work. So, I think the drone system will support the government in addressing this problem.

However, I think another problem also lies in the working styles of most Japanese companies, which also need to change.

nAre most drone applications limited by the hardware side or the software side?n

I think it’s the hardware side. Flight time is the biggest problem to address when developing drones. Many drones use lithium polymer batteries, which only last for about 10 or 20 minutes. Some drone companies have developed the hydrogen drone system, which extends the flight time up to three hours.

Another problem is the payload. How much load can a drone carry? How far can it go?

nWhat area do you think drones will change the most?n

I think it’s logistics. It’s the same with airplanes in the past. One of their first use cases was for wars. When wars were over, they were used for logistics. So, I think moving forward, we will see mostly commercial applications—particularly in logistics—of drones.

nDo you have plans to expand globally?n

Our company has only about 30 or 35 people, so we’d like to focus on Japan for now. Next year, we plan to increase the headcount and develop offshore business partnerships.

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Sure, it’s easy to criticize T-Frend, the “anti-overtime drone,” as a silly idea. But let’s see what it really tells us about Japan and ourselves.

Karoshi or death by overwork is a real thing in Japan. The amount of time worked is crazy and the amount of unreported and uncompensated overtime is even worse.

Most Japanese say that this is the result of a Japanese business culture that rewards loyalty and hard work. But it’s not that. Almost all countries have a business culture that rewards loyalty and hard work.

The root of this problem is a bit deeper. It goes to the Japanese idea of the honne (what you mean) and tatemae (what you say and what you are expected to say).

Most of the staff don’t want to work overtime and, frankly, most of the management does not want their staff working overtime. But there is no way for a manager to communicate this that does not sound like tatemae.

The employees are always left to guess whether it is really OK to go home as scheduled. If it’s all just tatemae, they will have their reputation damaged and be labeled as a shirker. Likewise, the managers themselves can’t be sure if their firm really wants them to reduce overtime or if it’s just tatemae.

As a result, we get crazy ideas like Premium Friday or the T-Frend drone that address the overtime issue by, well, just sidestepping it, pushing responsibility onto technology and policy, and then washing our hands of the problem.

If I were Japanese, it would be incredibly crass and vulgar for me to state this so directly, but I’m not Japanese. Premium Friday and the T-Frend drone are just two more tatemae and perhaps, the worst kind.

To be fair, most Japanese understand the absurdity of this situation, and Kumada was quick to point out that he did not see the need for T-Frend at his company.

Startups and innovative midsize companies might be the answer here. They are overwhelmingly setting up cultures that discourage work for work’s sake and focusing on results. They are being far more productive than Japanese enterprises because of it.

Not only are Japanese startups discovering new technologies and revenue models, they are also quietly solving some of Japan’s biggest business problems.