Borescope ブラック ジャック アプリgineering Co., Ltd.

Borescopes are used to inspect small, narrow spaces inaccessible to the human eye. In the medical world, such devices are known as endoscopes and have enabled physicians to see inside the human body with minimal invasion. ブラック ジャック アプリgineering Co., Ltd. produces industrial borescopes that enable detection, inspection and quality control across a variety of applications. Its easy-to-operate devices feature high-resolution cameras that can enter the smallest openings.

The "SPI" in ブラック ジャック アプリgineering stands for "Simple," "Precision" and "Innovation"-keywords that summarize the company's approach. ブラック ジャック アプリgineering was founded by Takeo Hidaka and Koichiro Harayama as a student business project in 2006. Hidaka was undertaking his MBA when he heard a gas company was looking for borescopes to inspect pipes. Hidaka recalls that designing and building their first device was a tedious process with "numerous failures" over the course of a year. But ultimately, the perseverance of the young innovators bore fruit.

In fiberscope technology, fiber-optic cables can break easily and are hard to extend without suffering a loss of image quality. By contrast, the tiny inbuilt video camera of ブラック ジャック アプリgineering borescopes transmits the image via electrical cable. The resolution is better and the cable can be extended up to 100 meters without any degradation of image quality.

ブラック ジャック アプリgineering has succeeded by offering high quality products for less. The 2008 Lehman Brothers crisis provided an unexpected opportunity. Companies falling on hard times who had to repair other, more expensive borescopes found it cheaper to buy ブラック ジャック アプリgineering's products and obtain the same quality at a fifth of the price.

Hidaka says the video borescopes requested by customers are getting smaller and smaller. In response, ブラック ジャック アプリgineering has just released a 1.8mm-diameter model that's the world's thinnest. And Hidaka and his colleagues are studying future avenues to explore, such as creating medical endoscopes.