Industry History | Omron — An X-ray Timer from Three People in Higashinoda

People treat Omron as the Shiokoji Horikawa tower by Kyoto Station that always sold a factory sensor and a home blood-pressure cuff from a Kyoto listing.

The first book was a 1/20-second timer for a hospital camera.

On 10 May 1933 Kazuma Tateishi opened Tateishi Electric Manufacturing in Higashinoda, Miyakojima-ku, Osaka, with two employees.

A friend who sold X-ray sets had told him the exposure needed a relay that fired at one-twentieth of a second.

Tateishi had built induction protective relays at Inoue Electric.

He sketched the timer in a month, tested a handmade unit at Nissei Hospital in Osaka, and took orders from Dai Nippon X-ray Manufacturing.

The same voltage relay later became a general-purpose switchboard part.

The factory moved to Hanazonotsuchido-cho in Ukyo-ku, Kyoto, in June 1945.

The firm incorporated as Tateishi Electric Corporation on 19 May 1948.

The OMRON trademark was registered in January 1959, taken from the Omuro district of Kyoto.

The English name became Omron Tateisi Electronics in 1968 and Omron Corporation on 1 January 1990.

The first contactless proximity switch shipped in February 1960.

An unmanned station ticket gate followed in 1967 and later received an IEEE Milestone.

The headquarters now faces Kyoto Station.

The first shop was an Osaka ward address that no longer carries the Tateishi sign.

Photo: Osaka city view near the Miyakojima side of the castle basin, via Wikimedia Commons.