FANUC's history begins in 1955 when young engineer Dr. Seiuemon Inaba was appointed to lead a new project team at Fujitsu, Japan's telecommunications giant. Within a year, Dr. Seiuemon Inaba developed the first numerical control (NC) system for Japan's private sector. The new business segment, evolving from the automation of a single machine to the automation of entire production lines over the following decade, grew successfully under Dr. Seiuemon Inaba's leadership, and in 1972 FANUC was established as an independent company. Dr. Inaba and his team, who continuously strived to push the boundaries of automation, increase efficiency, produce better products, and reduce costs, developed a robot for loading machine tools using the same principles. Dr. Inaba's work quickly enabled other manufacturers and engineering companies worldwide to benefit from this technology, reducing costs and increasing productivity. In the 1970s and 1980s, with worldwide success of products such as ROBOCUT, ROBODRILL, and ROBOSHOT being used in factories, FANUC began to offer optimized solutions for an increasingly expanding range of industrial applications and customer base. In Japan, FANUC was the first company to build and operate an automatic factory with NC machine tools and robots. Nearly 70 years have passed since FANUC's first successful product development, and today FANUC is the world's leading manufacturer in the field of factory automation. However, one thing has never changed: FANUC's deep commitment to pushing the boundaries of automation and helping its customers optimize their production processes.