is a
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
ese chemical company, specializing in the development, manufacture and sale of inks, pigments, polymers, specialty plastics and compounds and biochemicals.
It was founded in 1908 as Kawamura Ink Manufactory, renamed to Kawamura Kijuro Shoten in 1915, incorporated as Dainippon Printing Ink Manufacturing in 1937 and renamed to Dainippon Ink and Chemicals (DIC) in 1962 before the name was changed to the present name DIC Corporation in 2008 on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.
The company slogan "Color & Comfort By Chemistry" suggests that DIC products should deliver color and comfort to daily life.
The company operates worldwide (through 176
subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...
and
affiliate companies in 62 countries) and includes the
Sun Chemical corporation, based in the Americas and Europe.
DIC in Japan has 10 plants in Japan, located in Tokyo, Chiba, Hokuriku, Sakai, Kashima, Yokkaichi, Shiga, Komaki, Saitama, and Tatebayashi. The main research laboratory in Japan is located in
Sakura, Chiba
is a Cities of Japan, city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 173,740 in 78,483 households and a population density of 1700 people per km2 (4300 per sq. mi.). The total area of the city is .
Geography ...
cooperating with DIC development centers in China (Qingdao DIC Finechemicals Co., Ltd., Qingdao, China) and the Sun Chemical Group's research laboratories (in USA, Germany and UK).
The company is listed on the
Tokyo Stock Exchange
The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan.
The exchange is owned by Japan Exchange Group (JPX), a holding company that it also lists (), and operated by Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc., a wholly owned sub ...
.
History
* 1908 Founded as Kawamura Ink Manufactory
* 1937 Incorporated Dainippon Printing Ink Manufacturing
* 1950 Listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
* 1962 Merged with Japan Reichhold, changed Company name to Dainippon Ink and Chemicals
* 1986 Acquired
Sun Chemical's Graphic Art Material Dept.
* 1987 Acquired Reichhold Chemicals, Inc.
* 1999 Acquired
Totalfina S.A.’s Printing Ink Dept. (Coates)
* 2005 Sold Reichhold
* 2008 Changed Company name to DIC Corporation
* 2009 Established DIC Graphics, joint venture with
Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) integrating DIC's domestic printing ink business and DNP's printing ink business
* 2021 Acquired
BASF
BASF SE (), an initialism of its original name , is a European Multinational corporation, multinational company and the List of largest chemical producers, largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Ge ...
’s Global Pigments Business, known as BASF Colors & Effects (BCE)
Business and products
DIC is divided in 3 business units and 6 product divisions
Packaging & Graphic
* Printing Material Products Division :
Offset inks,
gravure inks,
flexo inks,
metal decorative inks,
security inks,
printing plates, jet inks, news inks
* Packaging Material Products Division: Packaging adhesives, coextruded multilayer films,
polystyrene
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It i ...
(hyperbranched, GPPS,
HIPS
In vertebrate anatomy, the hip, or coxaLatin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) (: ''coxae'') in medical terminology, refers to either an anatomical region or a joint ...
).
Color & Display
*Color Material Products Division: pigments for printing inks, pigments for coatings and plastics, pigments for specialty applications, pigments for color filters, pigments for cosmetics and
health foods (
Spirulina)
* Display Material Products Division:
Thin-Film transistor liquid crystal (TFT LC), Supertwisted nematic liquid crystal (STN LC)
Functional Product
* Performance Material Products Division: general polymers (
alkyd resins, unsaturated
polyester resins,
plasticizers
A plasticizer (British English, UK: plasticiser) is a substance that is added to a material to make it softer and more flexible, to increase its plasticity (physics), plasticity, to decrease its viscosity, and/or to decrease friction during its ...
, waterborne resins,
acrylic resins,
phenolic resins) specialty polymers (
epoxy resins, ultraviolet (UV)-curable resins,
polyurethane resins,
fluorochemicals),
metal carboxylates, sulphur chemicals, fiber and textile colorants
* Composite Material Products Division:
polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compounds, interior housing products, industrial
adhesive tapes,
plastic colorants, high-performance optical materials, Hollow-fiber membranes, medical diagnostics products
DIC Color System Guide
The DIC Color System Guide is a
spot color
In offset printing, a spot color or solid color is any color generated by an ink (pure or mixed) that is printed using a ''single run'', whereas a process color is produced by printing a series of dots of different colors.
The widespread offset- ...
system, based on
Munsell color theory. It is common in Japan, and comparable in role to the
Pantone systems.
Manufacturing facilities
The company recently inaugurated an advanced toluene-free plant for liquid ink manufacturing called Optima. This is DIC’s fifth plant in India, located at Sakhya in Bharuch district, Gujarat.
The plant is built on an area of 92,500 sq. m, occupying 45,000 sq. m of the plot to cater to a growing demand for Toluene Free/Keyone Free (TF, KF/NTNK) inks in the country.
Under phase I, the plant has a capacity of 10,000 Tonnes of TF, KF/NTNK liquid inks in two shifts. DIC India further plans to expand the plant to manufacture value-added and specialty products for the domestic and export markets. The company plans to use the remaining plot area to build plants for different types of products in its operations.
The new plant is expected to provide employment to over 100 people and boost the company’s access to the Northern and Western markets due to its location at the center of the chemical hub in India.
DIC India’s other four plants are located in Uttar Pradesh, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Kolkata, and Karnataka.
Cultural activities
*DIC owns 47.7% of the
sports club
A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports.
Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...
chain "Renaissance".
*In 1990, the company established the
Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art
The (often shortened to Kawamura Memorial Museum) was an art museum in Sakura, Chiba, Sakura, Japan, designed by .
The museum opened in 1990 and its collection now contains more than 1000 works collected by the Japanese resin and ink manufactu ...
to exhibit artwork collected by the company and its affiliates. The museum is located in a 30-hectare park near to its Central Research Laboratories. According to a DIC management decision, partially attributed to shareholder pressure,
the museum will close on February 1, 2025.
Gallery
References
External links
Official websiteDIC Corporation, Corporate Profile
* Wiki collection of bibliographic works on DIC Corporation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dainippon Ink and Chemicals
Chemical companies based in Tokyo
Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
Chemical companies established in 1908
Japanese companies established in 1908