YKK AP Technologies Lab (NA) Incorporated is a group company of YKK AP Inc. and YKK AP Inc.’s parent company is YKK Corporation in Japan.
In June 2022, YKK AP established YKK AP Technologies Lab (NA) Inc. (hereafter YKK AP Technologies Lab) in Pittsburgh, U.S.A., to strengthen its research and development in the digital field.
In July 2023, we established xTech Lab (cross-tech lab) as an R&D base at the Mill 19 facility, which also houses university researchers, researchers from other companies and research organizations from Pittsburgh.
The name “xTech Lab” is meant to express our desire to create new value by applying digital technologies to the YKK AP Group’s businesses and products that are spreading throughout the world.
Digital technologies have become indispensable not only for the sake of achieving YKK AP’s priority measures of “manufacturing reform by smart factorization,” but also in the decision-making of company management. Under such circumstances, YKK AP Technologies Lab aims to propel YKK AP Group’s business transformation from a digital perspective through the research, study, and development of digital elemental technologies and swift digitalization leveraging 5G, robotics, AI, and other technologies in the United States, a leader in the digital realm in terms of both its advanced technologies and talent.