Kyoto -- OMRON Corporation (TSE: 6645; US: OMRNY), a global leader in automation, sensing and control technologies, announced the establishment of a new R&D company, "OMRON Institute of Sensing & Control Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd", located in Shanghai Zizhu Science-based Technology Park, Shanghai, China.

A ceremony took place on September 19th at a hotel in Shanghai, attended by Ding WenJiang, Vice-President of Shanghai Jiaotong University and Zhang Wenyue, Vice Director of The People's Government of Mingang District Shanghai. From OMRON, Yasuhira Minagawa, Managing Officer and Chairman & President of OMRON (China) Co., Ltd., and Koichi Imanaka, Managing Officer and Senior General Manager of Research & Development H.Q. were in attendance.

Staff at ORS will be engaged primarily in research and development into the latest sensing and control technologies. In particular, they will focus on R&D into facial recognition technology and vision sensing technologies that can identify the shape and condition of various objects. The establishment of this new company represents an investment of US$9.7 million including real estate, construction of the building and infrastructure. Initially, approximately 100 researchers will be assigned to research around 30 themes. We plan to double both the number of researchers and research themes by the end of fiscal 2007.

This new company will become one of OMRON's core R&D facilities. Comprised primarily of local researchers and engineers, it will facilitate rapid response to local needs and develop new technologies that benefit the entire OMRON group. Every year over a hundred thousand Chinese students return home from US, European and Japanese educational institutions where they have studied cutting-edge technologies. Adjacent to Shanghai Jiaotong University and boasting excellent research and educational facilities, Shanghai Zizhu Science-based Technology Park is located in an area that is especially attractive for these highly-skilled returnee graduate students and researchers. "ORS aims to capitalize on the advantages of its location and offer a space for collaborative innovation, where university professors, graduate students, researchers and other promising individuals can come together and interact with OMRON researchers. In this way, we aim to strengthen our advanced sensing and control competencies even further and develop new technological breakthroughs" said Board Chairman Koichi Imanaka.