Milestone-Proposal talk:FURUNO

Advocates’ Checklist

1. Is proposal for an achievement rather than for a person?
2. Was proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology?
3. Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature?
4. Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology?
5. Is proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? At least one of the references from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the advocate. If the advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones.
6. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent?
7. Is proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public?
8. Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements?
9. Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications?
10. Scientific and technical units correct? (e.g. km, mm, hertz, etc.) Are acronyms correct and properly upperercased or lowercased?
11. Date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? https://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Helpful_Hints_on_Citations,_Plaque_Locations

Reviewers’ Checklist

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

In answering the questions above, the History Committee asks that reviewers apply a similar level of rigor to that used to peer-review an article, or evaluate a research proposal. Some elaboration is desirable. Of course the Committee would welcome any additional observations that you may have regarding this proposal.

Submission and Approval Log

Submitted date: 24 February 2021
Advocate approval date: 16 July 2024
History Committee approval date: 29 July 2024
Board of Directors approval date: 27 September 2024

Original Citation Title and Text -- Administrator4 (talk) 15:49, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Commercialization of the fishfinder, 1948.

A fishfinder was commercialized for the first time by Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. in 1948, which reformed the fishery industry in Japan and contributed remarkably to the development of protein resources. This fishfinder was realized by improving an echo sounder so that it could catch clearly the weak echo signals reflected from fish schools by enhancing the ability of its built-in amplifier.

Comment from Advocate -- Polismpp1125 (talk) 15:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Professor Shirakawa:

I have agreed to be the Advocate for this Milestone proposal. I have looked carefully at the proposal, and I now have to pick reviewers. These reviewers should have no conflict of interest with the Milestone or its supporters. Since I have very little knowledge of the technology involving fish-finding, if you have any suggestions for reviewers, I would be happy to consider them.

The only other thing is that it is required that: "All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation". Thus, references [4-9, 11] need to be accompanied by an English translation, or at least an abstract in English.

I look forward to working with you on finalizing the processing of this proposal.

Michael Polis Professor Emeritus Dept of ISE Oakland University Rochester, MI 48309 Home phone 706-579-1626 Cell 586-344-0972

Message from Advocate to Proposers -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 09:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Dear Proposers. Due to the end of the previous History Committee's term, the Advocate in charge has changed. Advocate for the Milestone 2021-01

Comment from Advocate to Proposers -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 05:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Dear Proposers. The format of Milestone's proposal form seems to have changed last year. You should add an abstract newly. Best regards, Advocate

Re: Comment from Advocate to Proposers -- Takeshi Fujii (talk) 06:07, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Dear Advocate. According to your instruction, I added an abstract newly. Best regards, Proposer

Comment from Advocate to Proposers -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 05:23, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Dear Proposers. Regarding the Historical Significance question in the Proposal. Could you please don't write history, but significance. Best regards, Advocate.

Expert Reviewer's Report_1_Miyamoto uploaded by Advocate -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 00:56, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Dear Dr. Tomohiro Hase,

I'm replying the review for proposal, as follows;

---

（１） Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?

　Yes. The Plaque Citation was accurate.

（２） Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?

The following evidence was confirmed in the literature.

[9] J. Fujiwara, “Advance of echo sounder technology from the genesis to today”, The journal of the acoustical society of Japan, vol. 43, no. 9, pp. 706-707, Sep. 1987 (in Japanese).

[10] Japanese Patent Office, Selection from TOP 100 Japanese Innovations “Fish finders”, IP Friends Connections March 2018 No. 18, pp.72-78.

[11] Article of Nagasaki News Paper, “Goto's sardine fishing enters the age of electric exploration. Catch that surpasses all others. Efforts that turned intuition into a science”, January 9, 1950 (in Japanese)

（3） Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

The late 1940s was after World War II, and various technologies were controlled in Japan. In those days, I think it was extremely valuable that Furuno Electric came up with the idea for the world's first fish finder and commercialized it as the first in the world. The technological capabilities that developed the fish shadows recorded by an echo sounder into a fish finder. Furthermore, I believe that the comprehensive commercialization of not only the equipment but also how to use it has value that goes beyond just being a high-level technological achievement.

（4） Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

Similar technology development was also taking place in Norway and other countries around the same time, but it is valuable that Furuno Electric was able to improve the performance of the echo sounder and realize the fish finder.

Conclusion

For all of the above, I highly recommend Furuno Electric's fish finders as valuable technological and historical assets and therefore worthy of an IEEE Milestone.

---

Yoshinori Miyamoto

Professor, Academic Research Institute, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology

Expert Reviewer's Report_2_Tanida uploaded by Advocate -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 09:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Subject: Expert Review Report

To: Dr. Tomohiro Hase, IEEE History Committee.

From: Jun Tanida, Osaka University.

The review result on Milestone-Proposal from Furuno is the following:

（１) Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?

Yes. The suggested wording of the Plaque Citation is accurate.

（２) Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?

Yes. Based on supporting texts and citations [9], [11], and [12], I confirmed the evidence to support the Plaque Citation.

（3）Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

Yes. The technology developed by Furuno was established by solving two problems: improving sensitivity and eliminating noise. I believe that the results have contributed greatly to the modernization of current fisheries. The data and structure diagrams shown in Figures 3 and 4 support the validity and effectiveness of the developed technology, which demonstrate that the proposed technology is an important technological achievement.

（4）Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

The fish finder is a device based on the existing echo finder, but originally it was intended for a different purpose, namely, measuring depth. The most important point of this proposal is that it has been made practical through steady efforts, specializing its function for use in the fishing industry. These relationships are adequately explained in the proposal.

In conclusion, Furuno Electric's fish finders are valuable as technological and historical assets, and are therefore worthy of an IEEE Milestone, so I highly recommend them.

Expert Reviewer's Report_3_Nishimura uploaded by Advocate -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 03:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Dear Dr. Tomohiro Hase

I will send you a Review Report for IEEE Milestone #2021-01 at your request. My answer to your question is as follows.

(Q1) Is the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?

Yes, suggested wording of the Plaque Citation is accurate.

(Q2) Is the evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Citation?

Yes, proposed milestone represents a significant technical achievement are shown in Reference [9], [11], and [12].

(Q3) Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

Yes, I can be easy to understand a significant technical achievement as Milestone from section 3 in the proposal. Certainly, in order to realize its role as a fish finder, the following two things are necessary. In other words, it is necessary to increase the sensitivity of the sensor enough to detect the reflection of fish shadows, and to suppress disturbance noise caused by the ship. Furuno Electric has successfully achieved both.

In accepting the role of proposal reviewer, I read several books, patents, and articles written in Japanese.

(a) There is a success story in a TV program created by NHK called "Project X". In that series, there was a story about the development of Furuno Electric's fish finder. Then, in the program, the Furuno brothers themselves and those involved talk about how they struggled to develop a fish finder. This content was the same as in section 4 of the Proposal.

(b) There is an article by the Kansai Branch of Japan Patent Attorney Association. Furuno Electric's invention of the fish finder was awarded for “Japanese published examined application S31-3583” as an excellent patent. https://www.kjpaa.jp/aboutus/case/furuno This patent relates to the improvement of a fish finder. By displaying the seabed as a white line as shown in Fig. 7 of the proposal, it is easy to distinguish schools of fish from the seabed.

(c) The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan recognizes outstanding technological assets as "cornerstones of electricity." Furuno Electric's fish finder was awarded the "Cornerstone of Electricity" by the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

(d) Institute of Invention and Innovation of Japan recognized "100 Innovations in Postwar Japan".

(Q4) Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

As described in Section 5 of the Proposal, in the past, the shadow of a large fish was accidentally captured. However, as explained in Section 5, their original purpose was to measure the depth of the seabed. As a result, we were unable to find a school of small fish that is indispensable for fishing. Furuno Electric's fish finder had a device described in Section 4 of the Proposal, and it had a specification that was different from other methods.

According to the above answers, fish finder by Furuno Electric surely has a historical value for the subsequent development of the fishing industry. Therefore, I recommend it to be an IEEE milestone.

Ryota Nishimura.

Associate Professor, Graduate School of Technology, Industrial and Social Sciences, Tokushima University.

Expert Reviewer's Report_4_Kawasaki uploaded by Advocate -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 05:53, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Dear Dr. Tomohiro Hase

I have assessed the proposed milestones and will present the results below.

1) Is the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?

Yes, the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation is accurate.

2) Is the evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Citation?

Yes, I have examined the references [1-10] and found the plaque citations to be accurately supported.

3) Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

Yes, I consider proposed milestone worthy of being the world's first fish finder and being a significant technological achievement.

4) Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

As this proposed milestone is the first fishfinder in the world, there are no similar or competing achievements.

Furuno Electric's fishfinders are valuable as technological and historical assets, and are therefore worthy of being awarded an IEEE Milestone, so I highly recommend them.

Sincerely yours,

Ryodo Kawasaki,

President of Marine Acoustic Society of Japan

Advocate’s Recommendation -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 07:29, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Advocate’s Recommendation for the IEEE Milestone #2021-01 “Commercialization of the fish finder, 1949”

July 16th, 2024.

Dear IEEE History Committee.

I’m honored to be an advocate to review for the Milestone Proposal, #2021-01 “Commercialization of the fish finder, 1949”.

(1) Expert Reviewers:

I asked four independent experts in the field of the proposal to conduct a detailed review from a technical point of view.

I asked expert reviewers following four questions.

(Q1) Is the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?

(Q2) Is the evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Citation?

(Q3) Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

(Q4) Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

I’ve upload four Expert Reviewer’s Reports to ETHW website as following URL:

https://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Milestone-Proposal_talk:FURUNO

As far as I can tell from reading the four Expert Reviewer Reports, I have received positive ratings from them all that are appropriate for Milestone.

(2) Advocates’ Checklist:

Following <Yes> is my check for lists.

Is proposal for an achievement rather than for a person? If the citation includes a person's name, have the proposers provided the required justification for inclusion of the person's name? <Yes>.

Was proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology? <Yes>.

Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature? <Yes>.

Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology? <Yes>.

Is proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? <Yes>.

At least one of the references from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the advocate. If the advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent? <Yes>.

Is proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public? <Yes>.

Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements? Is the address complete? <Yes>.

Are the GPS coordinates correct and in decimal format? <Yes>.

Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications? <Yes>.

Scientific and technical units, correct? (e.g. km, mm, hertz, etc.) Are acronyms correct and properly uppercased or lowercased? <Yes>.

Date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? <Yes> https://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Helpful_Hints_on_Citations,_Plaque_Locations

(3) Advocate’s Comment and Conclusion:

I received the satisfactory peer review results from four experts in the field of proposals. These expert reviewer’s reports and discussions were very useful for my decision as an advocate for Milestone 2021-01.

Citation:

Four expert reviewers responded that citation is accurate, judging by the answers to question Q1. They also reported that they confirmed that the contents of the citation are supported by evidences, judging by the answers to question Q2. As an advocate, I have the same judgments as reviewers, too.

Technical significance and historical value:

Four expert reviewers gave me detailed reviews of the answers of Q3 and Q4. They acknowledged the historical significance of the fish finder by Furuno Electric and its great impact for historical value. As an advocate, I have the same judgments as reviewers, too.

Advocate’s Conclusion:

All four expert reviewers gave the proposal strong recognition and support that it deserves the IEEE Milestone certification. I have considered carefully both the proposal and the expert reviewer’s reports, and have the same thought as expert reviewers. In conclusion, I strongly recommend this proposal #2021-01 “Commercialization of the fish finder, 1949” to the IEEE Milestone as an advocate.

Best regards,

Dr. Tomohiro Hase, IEEE Fellow. Advocate #2021-01, IEEE History Committee.

(New) Dear Dr. Brian Berg,

Thank you for your advice on Citation. Following your advice, I have revised Citation.

Takeshi Fujii, Furuno Electric Company, Limited

Re: Advocate’s Recommendation -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 08:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Dear IEEE History Committee

I received the Expert Review Report from Prof. Okuyama on July 31 and uploaded it.

Dr. Tomohiro Hase, IEEE Fellow. Advocate #2021-01, IEEE History Committee.

An Example of an Excellent Proposal -- Bberg (talk) 12:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

This is an example of an excellent proposal, with extensive background documentation. I had the privilege of working with Tomohiro Hase san, the Advocate for this proposal, to whom I provided some feedback about the citation.

Brian Berg: IEEE History Committee Vice Chair & Milestones Subcommittee Chair

Re: An Example of an Excellent Proposal -- YasushiNishimori (talk) 07:29, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Dear Dr. Brian Berg,

We are extremely grateful for your guidance in helping us finalize our proposal. We are very pleased to conduct this proposal with you.

Takeshi Fujii and Yasushi Nishimori, Furuno Electric Co., LTD.

Expert Reviewer's Report_5_Okuyama uploaded by Advocate -- Tomohiro Hase (talk) 01:12, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Dear Dr Tomohiro Hase

I have reviewed the proposal you sent on June 29, 2024, as follows,

1) Is the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?

Yes, the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation is accurate.

2) Is the evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Citation?

Yes, the evidence is presented in the proposal as it has been confirmed mainly in the references, [9], [10] and [11] of the proposal.

3) Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

Yes, the proposed milestone represents a significant technical achievement. FURUNO improved drastically performance of fish-finder by increasing the signal amplification and devising the installation of ultrasonic transducer, and could contribute to increasing the catch amount drastically. Based on the improvement, the fish-finder commercialized by FURUNO became widely popular and required for fisherman.

4) Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

Furuno was the first to successfully demonstrate that fish-finder is very useful to increase fish catches drastically. Then, the other companies tried to produce the fish-finder, but Furuno made the greatest contribution to manufacturing and spreads as shown in the proposal and the reference [3]. So, the similar or competing achievements are included in the proposal, and the proposer describes these adequately and their relationship to the achievement being proposed.

In conclusion, Furuno demonstrated fish-finder is required in fishing and succeeded the commercialization. Therefore, Furuno is worth receiving an IEEE Milestone, and so I highly recommend the proposal.

Please et me know it if there are problems in my review.

Sincerely yours,

Masanori Okuyama, Honorary professor, Osaka University, Graduate School of Engineering Science