Bridgestone adds new centre & proving ground to Innovation Park

With the opening of two new facilities, the Bridgestone Innovation Park in Japan is now fully operational. The facility in Kodaira, Tokyo has gained the B-Innovation innovation centre and B-Mobility proving ground.

B-Innovation contains areas such as the ‘Bridgestone Open Innovation Hub,’ where the latest ideas are fostered through viewing and engaging with core Bridgestone technologies and products. The innovation centre also includes the ‘Rough Prototyping Studio’ in which machine tools can be used to give shape to ideas, and the ‘Co-creation Office’, which is open to external partners.

B-Innovation (Photo: Bridgestone)

B-Mobility is a proving ground that Bridgestone will use to quickly experience and evaluate the performance and potential of prototype mobility technologies and products.

B-Mobility Proving Ground (Photo: Bridgestone)

Multifaceted facility

Bridgestone Innovation Park is a redevelopment of the technology centre opened in 1962 adjacent to Bridgestone’s Kodaira plant. The first stage of the revamped facility, the Bridgestone Innovation Gallery, opened in November 2020.

The tyre and rubber products company describes Bridgestone Innovation Park as a “multifaceted facility designed to promote interaction with empathy among various stakeholders about Bridgestone’s history and its vision toward 2050, cultivate the relationships through co-ideation and co-R&D, and then realise co-creation of new value.”