Japan’s first glass-electrode pH meter, and the turn to instruments (1950)

How one import substitution set the course

The significance of this decision goes beyond finding a replacement for an abandoned line of business. The technology that reworked the pH meter — until then available only as an import — into something usable in Japan’s humidity determined the company’s direction thereafter. The division of labour by which the sensor is developed in-house and everything around it entrusted to outsiders was born from the confidence gained in developing that pH meter, and it can be seen passing on to the infrared gas analyzer and eventually to the automotive exhaust-gas analyzer.

The domestic production of a single product called forth a second pillar in the infrared analyzer and drew in an alliance with a major electrical manufacturer on equal terms. What marks this period is that the problem of the day — substituting for imports — worked as the motive for refining a measurement technology of Horiba’s own. Where to draw the line between what to hold in-house and what to entrust outside became a question that recurs throughout Horiba’s management, right down to the expansion by serial acquisition in later years.