Seiuemon Inaba, Ph.D., the founder of FANUC Corp., who turned a fledgling startup into a global manufacturer of robots and machine controls, died Oct. 2. He was 95.
Inaba graduated from the University of Tokyo with an engineering degree in September 1946 and joined Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing (currently Fujitsu Ltd.) two months later. As an engineer, he led the development of the first numerical control (NC) for machine tools by a Japanese company. In 1972, Fujitsu FANUC was founded as a spinoff of Fujitsu, with Inaba as managing director. He became president and CEO of FANUC Corp. in 1975. He continued to lead the company until June 2000, when he was named honorary chairman.