Disk revolution: Industrial drying for the future Nishimura Works Co., Ltd.

Ogi is a small city in Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The sleepy hamlet lies among rice fields and under a skyline of purple mountains. Though it might not resemble the setting for a global technology leader-it's nevertheless home to Nishimura Works Co.

The company's flagship product is its Compact Disk Dryer. This is an innovative conductive-heat dryer for the rapid heating and drying of materials like ceramic slurry, ferrite, beer yeast, salt, water-soluble paint and just about anything else. While it serves the same purpose as drum dryers used by paper mills, its revolutionary design means greater efficiency at a fraction of the size. With conventional drum dryers, substances are dried on the outer circumference of the drum, requiring plenty of space and energy. The CD Dryer on the other hand heats disks revolving on a central shaft. The smaller disks can be heated more quickly and efficiently than other types of dryers. The liquid solution is applied directly to their vertical flat surfaces, and after a single revolution, the dried substance is collected.

Nishimura Works was selected by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry for its list of Global Niche Top 100 companies that are global leaders in their fields. The firm has sold systems to companies all over the world. It has a partner company in Korea that manufactures disk housings and handles assembly and maintenance for Korean customers. As Nishimura Works only produces the actual disk and rotation mechanism for them, it can keep costs down and ensure the disks meet its rigid quality standards. With similar partnerships in the offing in Europe and Southeast Asia, plus activities across the globe, Nishimura Works is set to continue its expansion.

The Compact Disk Dryer was conceived, researched and developed by Nishimura Works and is one of a number of original inventions that the company sells. It is still in active development and engineers continue to make small improvements based on customer feedback. The next big development is to reduce the machine's already-low energy requirements even further so customers can save money and reduce their environmental impact. The Nishimura experts are hard at work on still more new technologies to take the company, and the world of technology, into the future.