Upcon Inc. President and CEO Nobukazu Matsufuji

Learning about urethane from scratch and opening up infinite possibilities

President and CEO of Upcon Inc.　Nobukazu Matsufuji　(Nobukazu Matsudo)

■ Profile
After graduating from Musashi Institute of Technology (now Tokyo City University), he enrolled in the Pratt Institute Graduate School in New York. After graduation, he worked at a major architectural design firm in Sydney, Australia. He then set up an architectural design firm that handles everything from design to construction. While there, he encountered a urethane settlement correction method and established a Japanese subsidiary of a foreign civil engineering company. He then established the Upcon Method, a unique settlement correction method that uses urethane resin that has no impact on the environment, and founded Upcon Limited Company in June 2003. The following year, in February 2004, the company was reorganized to become Upcon Co., Ltd.
He was the first person in Japan to use urethane resin to correct subsidence.

Upcon Co., Ltd. uses a unique construction method called the "Upcon Method," which uses a proprietary hard foam urethane resin to quickly correct tilted concrete floors in building structures that have tilted due to earthquakes or subsidence, and is also working on developing new applications for urethane.The company's staff is made up of half liberal arts and half science students, which is rare in the construction industry, and the company also puts a lot of effort into training new employees.We spoke to President Matsufuji, the company's representative, about the appeal of the company and its comprehensive training system.

Since I was little, I moved around a lot due to my parents' job transfers, and I loved thinking about how to arrange furniture in my room. This led to my interest in architecture, and I studied architecture at university, specializing in historic architecture, and I designed the basic layout of my own home.

Through my various experiences, I became attracted to interior design, which allows for fast work in a short period of time, rather than being involved in construction, which takes a year for design and two years for construction, and in my third year of university I founded a university-certified interior design study group. Through this, I began to want to be able to explain interior design academically. However, at the time there were no schools in Japan where interior design could be studied academically, so I researched the top schools in the world and attended Pratt Institute in New York. There was a period when I was juggling language school and graduate school, and I think those were the two years I studied the most in my life.
During my university days, apart from studying, I was a member of the tennis club and worked part-time as a tennis coach.

■ Correct settlement with environmentally safe materials

Upcon is my third company, founded 20 years ago. The first was a design firm in Australia that handled all aspects of architectural design and construction, and the second was a foreign-funded company specializing in subsidence correction (the process of restoring buildings that have tilted due to subsidence to a horizontal position). Upcon, my third company, was established to develop subsidence correction technology using environmentally safe urethane resin in Japan.
I have moved from interior design to the field of civil engineering, but in a broad sense it is the construction industry, so my knowledge of architecture has been useful. At the design office, it was natural for me to design and build with perfect 100 points. In the subsidence correction business, even if the correction does not bring the building to the same condition as a new building, the customers are very happy when the correction brings the building back to 80 points, so I decided to go down this path.

■ Become a builder and research and development developer

The Upcon method corrects the tilt of buildings that have sunk or tilted due to earthquakes or soft ground by injecting a special urethane resin called "rigid foam urethane" under the floor. This method immediately corrects the tilted building's tilt by foaming and expanding the urethane through a chemical reaction. This method pushes up the floor from under the tilted building without destroying it, restoring the concrete floor to a flat surface. Previous methods required building demolition to correct the tilted floor, and commercial facilities faced restrictions on business hours, making many people hesitant to correct subsidence. However, the Upcon method allows for quick correction without destroying the existing floor, resulting in even greater customer satisfaction. We are also simultaneously conducting research and development of new construction methods. While development is typically conducted by a dedicated individual, our technical staff are both contractors and researchers, which is a unique feature of ours.

■ Thorough support for learning from scratch

At Upcon, we have patents and technological know-how, but our greatest pride is our training system for new employees in the engineering department. Because there are no universities in the world that teach urethane, all employees, regardless of their background, learn about urethane for the first time after joining the company. We provide a comprehensive support environment for new hires, including manuals that teach the basics, support from senior employees, and interviews with the company president, for the first three years after joining. This allows anyone to learn from scratch. Employees in their second or third year are sometimes promoted to managerial positions, and from their fourth year onward, they are able to compete on an equal footing with their seniors. It's fascinating to watch these experiences transform new employees into immediate assets.
I believe that the responsibility of a president is to create a system that will allow the company to continue growing and surviving into the future even without me.

■ Growth Strategy

We have identified three future growth strategies for our management. The first is to increase our brand recognition. In particular, we are aiming to increase sales nationwide by cultivating new customers in the Chukyo and Kansai regions, using our listing on the Nagoya Stock Exchange in December of last year as a springboard. The second is to focus on research and development with the goal of creating new markets and becoming a monopoly company. The third is to use Vietnam, where we have a partner company, as a base and in the future consider global expansion beyond Southeast Asia to developed countries such as the United States, Europe, and Australia.

■ A cycle of learning and growth　

We value the cycle of "study → growth" for our employees. This is because we believe that constant evolution and constant learning are necessary to interact with our customers on the same level. Studying doesn't end with graduation from university; at our company, it's the beginning of learning. At Upcon, our goal is for employees to obtain 10 qualifications within 10 years of joining the company. Statistics show that in Japan, only 2000 to 5000 people out of 100 million hold 10 or more qualifications by age 35, so we support our employees to become part of that 0.5%. While working is a given for working adults, we also value a balance, such as using some of your free time to study.

■ Message

I think that student life is a time when you are unsure about your future career path. And when you start job hunting, I hope you will do it without any regrets.
In the midst of all this, I have one piece of advice for you. If you're going to look for a job, try to do thorough research, not just half-heartedly. If you're going to an interview, I want you to find out more about the company. Of course, most job-seekers will do their homework on the company beforehand, but that research often only lasts five minutes, or at most ten minutes. If you spend about 30 minutes on the train looking at the company's website, you'll get a sense of what kind of company it is and what it values. That knowledge will come in handy in every interview response, and it will be a weapon that sets you apart from others in your job search.

Interview with Student Newspaper Online on November 17, 2023 by Shiori Ohno, a second-year student at Sophia University Junior College