Domesticating acrylic acid and entering SAP late with an integrated chain (1970)

A habit of carrying one technology into the next product

Running through the sequence from the 1959 move into petrochemicals to the domestication of acrylic acid in 1970 and the entry into SAP in 1983 is a single pattern: keep hold, in-house, of the technology closest to the raw material. The catalysts and vapour-phase oxidation honed on phthalic anhydride were transferred to acrylic acid, and that acrylic acid was then carried on into SAP — a chain of routes by which an existing technology is extended into the next product, and the ground on which the handicap of arriving late could be overturned.

This winning formula had a reverse side, however: dependence on a single company, P&G. The spread of production sites overseas also proceeded largely along the lines of the largest customer’s own expansion. The strength of an integrated chain and the fragility of reliance on one customer grew as two faces of the same thing — a structure that leaves open the question of how Nippon Shokubai will face the era that follows.