Greetings on Appointment



April 2020
Akio HIROSE
President, the Japan Welding Society

I am Akio HIROSE of Osaka University. It is a great honor and pleasure for me to have been appointed as the 55th President of the Japan Welding Society (JWS), which is one of the most prestigious societies in the field of materials science and engineering in Japan. JWS has a long history and celebrates its 94th anniversary since its foundation in 1926 (Taisho 15th). That is why I am acutely aware of the heavy responsibilities that it entails.

The outstanding efforts of former President Shinozaki and former Vice-President Oi have brought about financial improvement. Nevertheless, JWS is still facing a difficult situation. The outbreak of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which has spread around the world this year, has severely affected JWS. We were forced to cancel the 2020 spring annual meeting, postpone the general meeting and so forth. Under such unprecedented circumstances, I have taken seriously the functions and responsibilities of the President to whom I was appointed.

What leadership role should JWS play to get through this critical phase of transition where Japan’s society, industry and economy have been changing drastically due to the “New Normal” caused by COVID-19? I sincerely hope that we, as the members of JWS, will work together to face up to this situation, which will lead to the evolution for tomorrow.

The most important role that JWS should play is to build the academic base in the field, then provide the latest research information from that and place for sharing that information. Firstly, regarding the academic base, JWS has standing research committees in charge of managing it. However, the academic base in the field of welding and joining technologies is not invariable. Today, it therefore requires technological innovation in the industrial field, such as applications of artificial intelligence, three-dimensional additive manufacturing and multi-materialization which are closely related to welding and joining technologies. In this light, JWS is in urgent need to move into such new field, taking drastic and swift steps to expand into the new field as maintaining the core academic field intact. Secondly, regarding the offering of the latest research information, JWS offers academic information through its research papers and its journal. The problem, however, is that the number of submitted papers is decreasing. Although JWS has taken several measures such as publishing its special editions, there are structural problems that researchers of universities and national institutions are less motivated to submit their treatises to Japanese journals with no Impact Factor. In the medium and long term, it is essential to tackle these problems, making full use of various opportunities including Welding Letters of its English-language journal. It is also essential to disseminate much new information to the general public including junior high school, high school and college students in order to engage in outreach activities. I would like to go ahead with these activities with the cooperation of Young Welding Researchers Network and each branch. And thirdly, regarding the offering of the place to share information, the most important place to share the academic information is the spring and fall annual meetings, where various reforms under former President Shinozaki were successfully undertaken, such as installing industrial sessions and making its management more efficient. However, the cancellation of the latest spring annual meeting, although unavoidable, came as a terrible blow to JWS. Taking this occasion, I would like to further expand the meetings, including the utilization of ICT and cooperation with other societies and associations in the future.

These activities of JWS are supported on a stable financial base. Over the past fiscal year, JWS has taken steps to stabilize the base. However, it is inevitable that its financial base will be severely affected in order to address the impact of COVID-19. In the current fiscal year, scrutinizing the impact which JWS has had, it is necessary to work toward further stabilization and expansion of its financial base. Not to mention increasing membership, active measures that contribute to the income of JWS other than membership fees are also necessary.

JWS can only be operated with the voluntary activities of all members of the Strategic Planning Committee and other Operations Committees. I sincerely appreciate your generous support. However, various problems have emerged in this situation, which has affected JWS seriously. Even if the situation is sudden and temporary, it is necessary to seize this opportunity to move forward with establishing a decision-making approach in an emergency and making the JWS operation more efficient, such as introducing an online meeting and teleworking system.

Finally, we earnestly hope your kind cooperation and support for the further development of JWS.

Greetings on Appointment

April 2018
Kenji SHINOZAKI
President, the Japan Welding Society

My name is Kenji SHINOZAKI and I am from Hiroshima University, and I have been appointed as the 54th President of the Japan Welding Society (JWS). I am very honored to have been selected as the President of the JWS which has a long history and is celebrating its 92nd anniversary this year. At the same time, I feel this role carries with it a big responsibility and many expectations.

Upon appointment, I asked the staff about the recent changes in the number and composition of the JWS membership. The number of members has been continuing to decline over the last ten years; the present number totals approximately 2,460 individual members (including 220 student members) and 340 corporation or institute members. Considering the social conditions in which we presently live, we cannot expect a dramatic increase in membership in the future. However, our Society is a relatively large academic society among the metal-related societies in Japan, even with the current number of members. Our individual members’ affiliations consist of the following: 24% belong to universities and higher educational institutes, 5% belong to national research institutes, and 67% belong to corporations or research institutes of corporations. Our corporation members’ ratio is around 70% of the membership, which is unique among academic societies. The specialties of the members are as follows: welding 52%,metal 18%,mechanical 14%,architecture, civil engineering, shipbuilding 8%, which means that nearly half of all members belong to industries other than welding. Given the nature of this kind of society, I have been thinking about what will benefit the members of the JWS.

After spending 12 years as a faculty member at the Division of Welding Engineering, School of Engineering at Osaka University, I started working at the School of Engineering at Hiroshima University. It is well known that the Inland Sea (Seto-naikai) coastal area, including Hiroshima prefecture, is the mecca of the leading manufacturing industry in Japan, and there are many opportunities to receive information regarding welding in various manufacturing industries. Each industry has its own problems as regards welding. Engineers are required not only to develop innovative welding technology, but also to solve the problems that confront them. Therefore, I feel that it is very important to develop welding engineers and technicians who are aware of the basis and appliance of welding. On the other hand, in order for manufacturing industries to compete in a globalized world, the development of innovative technology is urgent. In the domain of welding, the joining of dissimilar materials and additive manufacturing technologies are being vigorously researched as a national project.

Given this background, first of all, the role of our Society is to develop research and to inform and share the outcomes arising from the research. The spring and fall national meetings, eight research committees, the academic journal, and proceedings are offered to assist your activities, and I think it is necessary to increase the number of lectures and to refresh our publications to improve our membership services. Moreover, I think it is important to hold various lectures, seminars, and symposiums and to strengthen the activities of our nine branches.

Unlike in other nations, the Japan Welding Society and the Japan Welding Engineering Society are run respectively through different organizations, each offering educational opportunities to welding researchers, engineers, and technicians and they strive to uphold world-class welding technology. However, from October 2016, under our former president F. Minami, an agreement was made to build a closer partnership between the two Societies and planning was initiated on partnership projects through the Japan Institute of Welding (JIW). I think of it as a very good opportunity to create win-win relations between both Societies. Within this partnership, many things are being discussed, such as strengthening the education of welding engineers, publishing a more appealing journal, and holding cooperative events between the JWS and the JWES. In addition, for the JWS to commit to a national project, I think we need to discuss how to start a JWS research project with the cooperation of Industry, Universities, and the Government.

We sincerely appreciate the cordial support and cooperation of all members in the growth and development of the JWS.

New Year’s Greetings

January 2018
President of Japan Welding Society
Fumiyoshi Minami

First of all, we would like to wish you a happy new year.
We are very glad to greet the New Year with all JWS members and also, wishing this year will be a wonderful one for all of you.

The mission of JWS is not just to build the academic basis and competence for welding and joining technologies, which aims at leading the world by the intellectual collaboration and diversity, but also to innovate manufacturing by implementing cultivated seeds of research into the society, which attributes to establishing the welding community where we can convey a dream to the next generation.

JWS holds the national meeting in every spring and fall as the biggest events, so that we can disseminate our research potential and its practical application to manufacturing industries. At the latest fall national meeting, which was held in Kyushu Institute of Technology, near Kokura, by efforts of JWS Kyushu branch, there were 220 general presentations, the largest in these past ten-odd years, and were around 600 participants, which has marked a new record among the past national meetings. Note that, at the fall national meeting in Ikaho-Onsen, Gunma 2016, there were about 500 participants. Thus, we got the largest number of participants in 2016 and 2017. In order to encourage such recent trend, JWS should develop more attractive activities to be welcomed by the members.

Now, it has passed one-year and half since JWS and JWES (Japan Welding Engineering Society) launch the business cooperation under the framework of JIW (Japan Institute of Welding). The aim of the cooperation is to sustain the cultivation of “Welding Resource” in Japan based on the harmonization of “Academic Intelligence” mastered by JWS and “Technological Intelligence” accumulated in JWES, which can take the initiative in the world. We have established “Joint Planning Committee” in JIW to realize this business cooperation, where action programs are under discussion by the selected members from JWS Strategic Planning Committee and JWES General Planning Council.

The program is just setting off this year. JWS proposes the following 4 approaches that concur with JWES in many aspects.

  • Human resource cultivation & Education cooperation: We should structure human resources bank for education/research, technology development and skill transfer in the integrant field for the next generation of welding and joining. We intend to expand the welding community soundly, with taking into consideration of how to increase young researchers’ involvements and women’s activities, and to revitalize the local branch of JWS.
  • Research cooperation: We strengthen the research organization for IIW and enhance the presence of Japan in the international society. We identify the JWS/JWES expert panels responsible for 17 Technical Commissions in IIW and structure the meeting of Delegates of Japan. We plan to revise our management solution for the existing research committees in JWS and JWES through the position of Research-oriented or Technology-oriented.
  • Cooperation for pioneering a new field : We devote the matching of research seeds, spotting the state-of-the-art trend, with industry needs, which leads to the development of a new business model to form a wave “Research & Development→Practical application→Standardization”. This is really what we can achieve by the business cooperation of JIW and JWES. The important proposals of this cooperation business include an additive manufacturing, welding technology for dissimilar materials, science of corrosion in welds.
  • Information & publication cooperation:We should intensify our outreach activities so that “Welding & Joining” can influence the society widely as the socially-recognized word. We plan to hold a welding festival consisting of presentations, demonstrations, exhibitions, welding on trials, virtual simulations etc. all in one, and to publish a joint journal of science and technology. It is also very important for our project to integrate our information from a user’s viewpoint.

We will certainly initiate above approaches as soon as possible. Your opinions, suggestions, innovative proposals are highly appreciated, which enables our cooperation to bring a big advantage to the welding society and to be an attractive one for both the university/industry.
Lastly, I wish everyone’s continued success and good health whole this year and appreciate your cordial support and cooperation for JWS activities.

Greetings from the President at the General Meeting

April 2017
President, the Japan Welding Society (JWS)
Fumiyoshi MINAMI

A whole year has gone by since I was appointed as the 53rd President of the Japan Welding Society (JWS) last April. I would like to show my deepest gratitude to the individual and company members of the JWS for their continued support.

The JWS celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2016 and as a commemorative event we held a joint conference of the 9th International Symposium of the Japan Welding Society (9WS) & the 10th International Conference on Trends in Welding Research organized by the American Welding Society in October at Hitotsubashi Hall, Tokyo. During a special session at 9WS, I was given an opportunity to introduce the activities of the JWS, such as research committee activities, national congress, symposium and seminars, education, public relations and publications, younger members’ activities, international activities, branch activities, and so on. I realized once again that JWS is supported by each and every member of the organization because of their profound understanding of and dedication to the JWS activities.

This year will be a new year for the welding industry in Japan, as it enters a new phase. As we announced in the press release of October 5th last year, the JWS and the Japan Welding Engineering Society (JWES) renewed Japan Institute of Welding (JIW), which had been a joint management of both societies, to enhance communication with the International Institute of Welding (IIW). We also announced that we will promote our joint activities under JIW. The aim is to maintain a continual progression of “competency in welding” in Japan, having “knowledge acquired by studying” (to build academic frameworks regarding the basis of the science of welding and joining, and joining by advanced technology) which JWS exceeds in, and “knowledge acquired by practicing” which JWES similarly promotes, in order for our country to take the initiative in the world.

JIW’s “Joint Planning Committee” is responsible for the planning of the joint activities, and is composed of four representatives from the JWS Planning Committee (of which I am one of the members), two representatives from the JWES General Planning Committee and two JWES directors who represent the industry, which makes eight members in total. We held an inaugural meeting in February, and have confirmed the points listed below as policies of the joint activities.

  • To plan collaborative activities which we think will give a significant advantage to the welding industry in Japan.
  • To establish themes which will appeal to both industry and the academic world.
  • To run activities that will be valuable for members of both the JWS and the JWES.

We were open in our exchange of opinions and took note of various points, such as international activities and the development of standardization, next generation welding and joining technologies to be developed, areas of industry to be covered, how the education and training system should be organized, human resources development, and technological advancements.

Questions that arose during the meeting were:

  • Are our activities being conducted taking into account the present situation of the welding industry in Japan?
  • Are we producing a sufficient number of researchers and engineers to meet the needs of the welding industry in Japan?
  • Is the distinction between the skills required on site and in advanced research clear?
  • Is the skill gap between original contractors and subcontractors resolved in a systematic way?
  • Is the PR for recruitment to the welding industry working well?

Many of the questions which arose were related to the foundations and fundamental principles of both organizations, and we realized once more that what we need is a strategy which responds to our society’s needs and present conditions. At the Joint Planning Committee, we will think about how to deal with those questions together, and aim to develop this collaboration so that our activities can receive worldwide recognition.

Research into welding is a science that deals with the skill of “joining things,” and manufacturing is supported by a technology that is a practical implementation of this science. Moreover, developing the knowledge of manufacturing will lead to advances in technology for the next generation and the development of human resources. The JWS will continue to improve its influential power as a center of welding and joining research, be involved in collaborative activities with the JWES, and investigate the ways to link the knowledge of manufacturing.

We really appreciate the continuing support of all the JWS members. Thank you.