APPROACHING 100 YEARS OF TECHNOLOGY HISTORY
NSK Ltd. was established in 1916 to take over the business of Nippon Seiko Limited Partnership Company which had been founded in 1914. It commenced business in Osaki-machi, Ebara-gun, Tokyo (now Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo) as Japan's first manufacturer of bearings.

NSK is a leading manufacturer of roller bearings, linear technology, automotive components & steering systems. Its product ranges include ball & roller bearings, bearing units, linear guides & ball screws, hub units & steering columns. NSK bearing types include deep groove, angular contact, self-aligning, thrust, cylindrical, spherical, tapered and needle.

Today, NSK employs more than 27,400 employees in 29 countries. As per March 2012 NSK achieved a turnover of 6,7 billion Euros. This result has been driven by ever-increasing investment in research & development, enabling the company to continuously improve the quality of its products and services.

This investment supports NSK's objective of "No. 1 in Total Quality". In addition to a complete rolling bearing portfolio, NSK develops and manufactures precision components and mechatronic products, as well as systems and components for the automotive industry, including wheel bearing units and electric power-steering systems.

A brief history of NSK's production and technology development activities over the past nine decades:

Introductory period:
1916
Company is founded and ball bearing production starts.

1930s
Expansion of bearings business in Japan.

Deployment period:
1940s
Expansion of demand during post-war reconstruction.

1950s
Entered ball-screw-type steering market and linear product market with balls screws and linear guides.

1960s

• Establishment of engineering research laboratory.
• Launch of needle roller bearings production as well as of automatic transmissions
• Development of first NSK axel bearings for bullet trains.
• Entered steering column market.

Growth period:
1970s

• Development of NSK's first original bearing grease (NS7).
• Entered VCR market with high accuracy bearings.
• Expansion of research on bearing life.
• Entered sealed clean bearing market.

1980s

• Entered mechatronics market.
• Establishment of heat treatment (TF) technology.
• Introduction of HUB III.
• Enters the electronic power steering (EPS) market.

2000s

• Finalization of Fujisawa Research & Development Centre.
• Commercialization of BSS series + introduction of HPS series of industrial machinery bearings.
• Development of world's smallest bearing: bore diameter of 0.6 mm, outside diameter of 2mm.
• Development of cylindrical roller bearings for wind turbine gearboxes.
• Development of lightweight cold-formed hub unit bearings.
• Development of the World's first dual pitman-arm actuators for steer-by-wire systems.
• Development of the manipulation system for fine processing.