In November of 2023, DN Lighting was involved in a repair project for Osaka’s Mitsutera Temple (Daifukuin, Shippozan) cooperating in designing the lighting in the main hall. Let’s look at the company’s goals and prospects as it goes on the offensive to expand its market with this initiative.

In November 2023, indirect lighting manufacturing specialist DN Lighting was involved in a repair project for Osaka’s Mitsutera Temple, cooperating in designing the lighting in the main hall. Mitsutera is a Buddhist temple located in the city’s Minami business district. It is beloved by the people of the area, warmly nicknamed “Mittera-san” and “The Kanon of Minami.” A comprehensive renovation was launched in 2019 to utilize the land, and a 15-story building was constructed to cover the main hall and completed in November 2023. The main hall was reconstructed on the first through third floors of the building, and the fourth floor and above were transformed into a building complex that houses a hotel and other facilities.

DN Lighting used the renovation as an opportunity to design the optimum lighting for the statues of the Buddha in the temple’s main hall. They discussed issues specific to temples, such as main hall’s spatial presentation and the direction of the lighting design, and whether nails and screws could be used in the historical building of the main hall (as metal objects are traditionally avoided in temple construction). Fumiyoshi Kobayashi, section manager of the Osaka Sales Office at the Western Japan Sales Department, Sales Headquarters, spoke about the key points of the project.

“We asked Hiroyasu Yoshino—a lighting designer with an established reputation in the fields of art galleries, museums, and cultural properties—to work with us as we repeatedly studied improving color rendering and reproducing the original colors of the cultural properties.”

They focused on produced detailed effects, such as optimizing the overall lighting to bring out the beauty of the cultural properties; optimizing the lighting effects, particularly on the statues of the Buddha and the ceiling paintings, and installed indirect lighting that emphasizes the white of the wall surfaces. What were the company’s goals for this project? We asked Aya Takahashi, Manager of the Public Relations Department, Sales Headquarters.

“This project is aimed at expanding our market by demonstrating our company’s potential capabilities beyond cultural properties. Recently, as people are working remotely and spending more time at home, and there is a trend toward rethinking lighting. A growing number of people want to recreate hotel-like spaces in their homes. We aim to make a full-fledged entry into the detached house market in the future, and believe that this cooperation in lighting design for cultural properties will be an opportunity to appeal to the market by showing the public our proposal abilities, technological strength, and customization capabilities.”

The company’s original main market is in the field of commercial facilities, such as department stores and luxury brand shops. They offer a diverse lineup of products, in particular display shelves and indirect lighting for spaces, providing compact indirect lighting that “fits into and blends in” to the surroundings. It has received high praise for its customization ability in proposing the ideal product for each customer’s needs. Based on the know-how and knowledge they have accumulated with indirect lighting in these venues, they are expanding their market to such as hotels, offices, hospitals, welfare institutions, as well as getting involved with art galleries and museums.

Of great interest is that DN Lighting’s indirect lighting lineup basically consists of only line lighting. In terms of structure, the lineup features many items, such as different lengths and widths of lines, different color temperatures and light distributions, and flexibility. However, they do not deal in general ceiling lights, instead focusing on line lighting that responds to the various needs of their customers. How does the company differentiate itself from competitors with only line lighting? Mr. Yoshimi Hirota of the company’s Public Relations Department provides an explanation.

Major manufacturers have similar lighting fixtures, but they typically offer about 4-5 sizes for a single product. In contrast, we offer about 40-70 variations for a single product. At facilities, their shops and displays will be of various sizes, and in some cases the products that major manufacturers provide simply will not fit. However, our company’s products make it possible for the designer to create the space exactly as they wish. We started as a manufacturer of fluorescent lamps, and although they have now been replaced by LEDs, our long-accumulated expertise in light production is one of our major strengths.”

Also, the company has a manufacturing facility in Akita Prefecture, and approximately 80% of all its products are produced by manufacturing subsidiary Akita DN Lighting. Manufacturing products at its own domestic factory allows the company to provide consistent quality, fast delivery, and customization to meet customer needs.

The company has established their presence in a niche market, overcame the economic hardships posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and is currently maintaining strong performance due to high demand from the rush to construct overseas-affiliated hotels. What challenges are they facing?
“Our products can be used in various ways, but they require a separate power source as well as the space and budget to conduct a detailed inspection. Moreover, they require electrical work, so we have not penetrated the residential market very much. However, with people reevaluating the need for a better lighting environment, we are trying to get across the benefits of indirect lighting not only for housing, lighting manufacturers, and architects, but also to the general public by creating sales promotion material such as our Basic Book on Residential Lighting,” says Mr. Kobayashi.

Going forward, the lighting industry expects to see a market expansion through controls which make use of IT tools. DN Lighting plans to respond to this trend while remaining committed to customization based on its technological capabilities and domestic factory production. In fact, they are the only manufacturer of “Seamlessline” fluorescent line lamps, and has no competitors. Their strategy is to capitalize on new trends by making a range of proposals to major manufacturers based on these technological capabilities.

Mr. Hirota says, “We will not compete against major manufacturers. Going forward, we plan to continue improving our products and services while further upgrading the items that our customers demand”