Take a turn around a factory floor today, and you’ll find assembly lines studded with some of the world’s most sophisticated robotics operating inside digital architectures that haven’t fundamentally changed in decades.
At the same time, however, manufacturers are trapped in what experts call a ‘value void,’ investing huge amounts of time and resources into technology but falling short on productivity returns. A big driver of this industry-wide problem is that most manufacturers are sitting on siloed legacy systems without a clear strategic direction behind AI adoption.
Shinichiro Nakamura spotted early that what a factory does and what it actually knows are two completely different things — and that chasm is the biggest driver behind manufacturing’s accidents, bottlenecks, and unrealized potential with AI.
Nakamura’s own journey didn’t start in the industrial world, though. When he returned to his family’s firm, Daiwa Steel Tube Industries, he brought a viewpoint shaped by his exposure to IT and startup ecosystems.
Those early experiences left him with a different mindset: that manufacturing’s modernization challenge isn’t purely about technology. The factory floor is already home to some of the world’s most impressive innovation — meaning that the real problem is what happens between the technology and the people running it.
That conviction has been foundational to one to ONE Holdings (o2Oh), the multinational firm Nakamura leads today, spanning steel manufacturing and smart factory solutions across Japan, Vietnam, the U.S., and beyond.
Changing the Playbook
AI adoption in manufacturing is among the highest of any industry, yet the dominant approach — introducing new technology, letting existing systems and operators catch up — is precisely where value gets lost. Nakamura calls this the integration gap, and closing this chasm is a big part of what o2Oh does.
His methodology inverts the conventional AI adoption playbook: rather than selecting technology first and fitting operations around it, Nakamura’s team maps how work actually happens on the floor before any new technology is plugged in.
New tools are therefore introduced gradually, designed around existing workflows rather than replacing them. And crucially, operators build the systems themselves, not external integrators who are unfamiliar with the manufacturer’s needs, operational constraints beyond the immediate scope of focus, production challenges, and safety concerns along the wider production line. The result is a workforce that understands the technology because they shaped it.
One of Nakamura’s recent endeavors is an exciting example of this. o2Oh is partnering with Japanese firm Ory to pilot teleoperated robots on the production line, specifically to enable workers with disabilities to participate in operations. It embodies Nakamura’s philosophy: designing technology around human capabilities and workflow needs — not the other way around.
Building for what’s next
Nakamura is clear-eyed about where the industry is heading. As AI agents gain greater autonomy and Industry 4.0 gives way to Industry 5.0, the defining challenge won’t be computational power but communication — whether between experienced operators and the next generation inheriting their knowledge, or the back office and the production line.
In his view, safety is the thread that runs through it all. Some of the most catastrophic accidents he has witnessed boiled down not to equipment failure, but to a missing detail in a shift handover or a knowledge gap that no system was designed to catch. Getting communication right so it’s clear, instantaneous, and built into how work and operations actually flow is what makes everything else possible.
Nakamura also firmly believes that AI integration and system application must consider the cognitive load of individuals to ensure that safety is prioritized across every workflow and operational process.
Strong communication has a multi-faceted purpose beyond smoother and safer operations. The o2Oh president emphasizes the importance of walking teams through processes step-by-step so they are familiar with how the system works and the technology’s role and impact on their own daily work: in his experience, resistance stems from a fear of change, anger, or ambiguity.
Meanwhile, a ‘work together’ philosophy where clear communications and hands-on training ensure that employees are on the same page is at the core of navigating any resistance to change.
Nakamura and o2Oh are working toward a manufacturing industry that is not simply faster and more automated, but more intelligent and safer, at every level.
Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.
