DuPont has expanded the DuPont Automotive Center (DAC) in Nagoya and renamed it the DuPont Japan Innovation Center. The expansion and renaming reflects the substantially broader capability of the center to include other industries with remaining focus on the automotive industry.

The center in Nagoya has been serving customers in the automotive industry since 2005. The objective was to better serve the automotive industry and create new business through collaboration with key industry participants. In the past six years, DAC hosted more than 9,400 visitors and generated almost 370 new product innovations for automotive customers.

“Our center in Nagoya has been very successful in serving our automotive customers, as well as customers in all of our industries,” said Thomas Connelly, executive vice president and chief innovation officer. “This center served as a model that we extended around the world. It provides an interactive place for our scientists and customers to create innovative solutions that meet the needs of industry.”

Last year DuPont installed state-of-the-art audio and video communication technology to connect the company’s global technology resources live in customer meetings in Nagoya, making DuPont’s global technology resources instantly accessible to customers and partners in Japan. Customers saw great value and their feedback included benefits from the collaborative, inclusive nature of working with DuPont on science-based innovation projects that addressed real performance problems that they were having with existing materials and that collaborations with DKK produced faster and sustainable new product solutions.

Learning from the automotive center’s success, DuPont developed the concept of an innovation center with a broadened focus beyond the automotive industry to multiple industries, such as agriculture, food, packaging, electronic materials, alternative energy including solar and industrial biosciences. DuPont has seven Innovation Centers around the world, with five in Asia and two in Latin America. The company plans to expand the concept around the world to collaborate more closely with customers and partners.