CES is one of the world’s largest tech trade fairs, with attendees flocking to Las Vegas every January to witness the vast array of cutting-edge technology on display. Since 2021, Mitsubishi Electric has hosted a unified companywide booth at CES every year to showcase its new technologies and integrated solutions. We spoke to Miki Yamamoto of Mitsubishi Electric’s Global Strategic Planning & Marketing Group and Philip V. Orlik of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in Boston, both part of the team that planned and staffed Mitsubishi Electric’s presence at CES 2024, about the challenges and successes behind the scenes and what the experience meant to them.

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- To begin with, what kind of event is CES?

Orlik: CES is one of the world’s largest tech trade fairs, showcasing innovative consumer technologies every year in January. The convention center is the main venue, but other facilities around Las Vegas are also used. Both exhibitors and attendees come from all over the world.

- Do exhibitors showcase technologies and services as well as products?

Orlik: That’s right. One distinctive feature of CES is that it’s a trade fair for consumers, so products that make our real lives better are shown there. I imagine the same is true in Japan, but in the US it is an extremely high-profile event, with constant reports on TV, the internet, and social media throughout the exhibition period.

- CES is sometimes described as a starting point for international trends. How does Mitsubishi Electric views this trade fair?

Yamamoto: Through co-creation and integration of knowledge from within and outside the Group, Mitsubishi Electric is currently transforming into a "circular digital-engineering company" that provides evolved integrated solutions. We see CES as an ideal opportunity to share messaging about our cutting-edge technology and solutions to a wide range of stakeholders.

- What roles did you both play in Mitsubishi Electric’s presence at CES 2024?

Yamamoto: I mostly handled internal organization on the Japan side of the project. I also contributed to proposals for concepts and themes and participated in discussions about booth layout and what would be shown at the event.

Orlik: I took on a range of different roles, from holding meetings with Miki and the rest of the Japan team about the booth’s content to visiting trade shows in Japan where Mitsubishi Electric had a presence in order to deepen the discussion.

- I understand that Mitsubishi Electric’s CES presence was a collaborative effort between team members from Japan and the US. Can you tell us how you approached this process, and any particular challenges you faced?

Orlik: Mitsubishi Electric is a very diverse company that produces a wide range of products and solutions in countries around the world, including Japan. In North America alone, our offerings range from electric grid systems to consumer devices for heating and ventilation and automotive equipment. Discussing which of these to showcase at CES in order to surprise and delight the world was a particular focus for me.

Yamamoto: Our meetings with staff on the US side were basically held online. But when we were choosing what products and solutions to showcase, we strove to ensure that opinions from both sides, Japan and the US, were taken into account. Philip had been attending meetings since around spring 2023, after last year’s CES was over, so we asked him for his opinions on how we could best convey Mitsubishi Electric’s message. Because he is a researcher living in the US, he has a different perspective on things, and that meant that his ideas were fresh and new to the Japan side in many ways. It was a great opportunity for us to learn about the research going on at MERL and our product lineup and situation in the US.

Orlik: I wanted them to be as familiar as possible with the current situation and atmosphere on the US side, so I brought in members from multiple sites on the east and west coasts for the project.

- I’m sure that designing the booth posed some additional challenges for the Japanese team. How did you resolve them?

Yamamoto: This year, for the first time, we invited representatives from the US design company handling our CES booth to Japan so that they could see our presences at CEATEC and METoA Ginza, which were held in October 2023. We also held a unified group meeting, including team members from the Japanese design company as well, where we shared details about what kinds of products we were planning to showcase at CES and the stories we wanted to tell. This helped minimize misunderstandings going forward.

Orlik: That’s true. We were in communication throughout the project, but the first time everyone on both the Japan and the US side met face-to-face was just before CES. That was certainly a moving moment.

Yamamoto: The project members in Japan thought long and hard about how to overcome the differences in time zone, language, and sensibility and create something wonderful. Meeting Philip in person was a moving experience, but I also remember the first time I saw the actual booth that everyone on the project had combined their efforts to complete. It made me happy from the bottom of my heart. I think it expressed exactly what we wanted it to, and the challenges along the way only heightened the sense of accomplishment.

- What was the overarching theme of Mitsubishi Electric’s booth at CES 2024?

Yamamoto: Our theme this year was "To create a sustainable Smart Society where people, leading technologies and the environment can thrive together." Within that context, we focused on the contributions Mitsubishi Electric can make in five social challenge areas: "Carbon neutral," "Circular economy," "Safety/security," "Inclusion," and "Well-being." The technologies and products we showcased were chosen after careful deliberation on what was most suitable for CES.

Orlik: As a researcher, I approached things slightly differently from Miki. My response to that theme began from the basic question "What does it mean to create a smart society?" A theme is just a concept or a way of thinking. To express it at a trade fair in a way that conveys what you mean to say, you need to fully understand the message and make it your own. Once I had that starting point, I was able to come up with ideas for products and solutions we could showcase in order to reveal possibilities for the future.

- Your preparations came to fruition in January 2024, when CES 2024 opened to attendees. Did any aspects of the booth leave a particularly deep impression on you? What was the response from visitors?

Yamamoto: The booth had 17 sections in all, but one of the most visually striking and consistently popular was "Recycling Disco". This section was designed to showcase our cutting-edge plastic recycling separation technology while dancing to music. Presenting this complicated technology in a hands-on, game-like format makes it more approachable and easier to understand. I have noticed that "Recycling Disco" attracts the interest of many visitors in every country where we exhibit it.

Orlik: As a response to the "Carbon neutral" social challenge area, we showcased our high-efficiency heat pump technology. This technology reduces both environmental impact and running costs, so there was a lot of interest there. Kumo Cloud^® + SPAN Smart Panel Integration, a range of smart electric panels we developed with a technical partner, was also well received. In the past, using too many home appliances at once would cause breakers to trip, but these smart panels ensures that power is distributed intelligently without waste. As a result, even charging an electric vehicle at home causes no issues.

- Speaking of EVs, I understand the electric motorcycle generated a lot of discussion?

Orlik: Yes. There was a lot of interest in LiveWire^®’s e-bike, which uses Mitsubishi Electric semiconductors. We’re much closer than I thought we would be to having new transportation modalities that are more efficient but have lower environmental impact.

- Did any other elements or events at the booth standout and left an impression?

- Do you think discussions with attendees can contain the seeds of ideas for future product development?

Orlik: As Miki says, events like this give us a chance to receive feedback on individual products—comments like "Wouldn’t this kind of system be better?" or "You could use that in this way, too." This feedback can be put to use when designing future products, so as a researcher, too, I feel the importance of CES keenly.

- What was it like to attend CES as an exhibitor?

Orlik: The response from attendees was very positive. That made me happy. Listening to people’s responses, I got a sense for how technology developed by Mitsubishi Electric in Japan is finding new uses in the US, Europe, and globally, circulating and bringing Changes for the Better to the world.

Yamamoto: Some attendees were startled by Mitsubishi Electric’s emphasis on software development as well as hardware. But I feel that by showcasing the wide range of solutions we can offer, we revealed new possibilities for our company.

- In closing, can you share how your experience at CES will influence your work going forward?

Yamamoto: This project gave me a sense of how closely people around the world are watching Mitsubishi Electric, and how high their expectations of us are. So, in the future, I hope to maintain this awareness constantly as I contribute to our efforts to solve social challenges on a global scale. I also feel that putting our full, combined efforts into a global event like this helped strengthen lateral communication and cohesion within the company. The CES project not only let us send a message to people outside the company, but it also had a positive effect internally. Collaborating across borders on our CES booth involved many challenges and difficulties. Looking forward, I plan to emphasize mutual understanding in my everyday work duties, even as I remain focused on global communication.

Orlik: I was born and raised in the US, but the reason I have spent 23 years working for Mitsubishi Electric, a Japanese company, is because Mitsubishi Electric has a genuine desire to improve society, and its employees share that determination. At CES 2024, we addressed major social challenges head-on, showing ways forward for each of the five challenge areas. I feel proud to be part of a company that is striving to create a better world and a better society instead of just seeking profit, and I look forward to continuing my research to build a better future.

Written by Our Stories Editing Team