Launching the Aleco Data computerized time-and-attendance system (1968)

The sequel to a broken British time stamp

The Aleco Data decision was less the introduction of a new product than the work of redefining what the company sold. The time recorder was a machine first sold in 1932 at ¥280 apiece, with a clear price and a clear service life. Computerized attendance management, by contrast, meant selling equipment, computation and maintenance as one package, its contents differing with each customer. That Amano set about remaking its own product while sitting on roughly 70% of the domestic market tells you the character of the decision.

Why the founder returned to the presidency at eighty is recorded in the company history in his own words: connect the time recorder to the computer, and once that is done, hand the rest to the young. In the event Amano Shuichi stayed president until his death in December 1976 at eighty-six, and his successor Sugawara Tadashi set an internal retirement age for directors two months after taking office, in April 1977. The company that began with a small complaint — a British time stamp bought at a naval arsenal that broke almost at once — earned 23.6% of its sales from information systems in the year to March 2026, and 52.7% from parking systems. The share taken by the breakable machine itself is 1.3%.