Developing People Before Making Products: Panasonic and KOSEN Forge a Partnership to Navigate the AI Era for Manufacturing

The manufacturing field is rapidly shifting from hardware-centered work to solution-driven models that fuse hardware with software technologies such as AI. In this time of transition, cultivating engineers who can bridge these domains and create new value has become an urgent priority.

In Japan, College of Technology (KOSEN college), collectively known as the National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), have been known for contributing to the early training of engineers with practical skills. These schools provide a five-year program that combines specialized engineering education with practical, experimental training. Students who enter KOSEN colleges after finishing junior high, around the age of 15, can acquire knowledge and skills that are on par with—or even exceed—those gained through university education.

In November 2025, Panasonic Holdings Corporation signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with an independent administrative agency, the KOSEN, which operates Japan’s 51 KOSEN colleges, to cultivate a new generation of manufacturing professionals. The Panasonic Group and KOSEN are jointly developing a new curriculum designed to respond to rapid changes in manufacturing and advance education for manufacturing professionals, incorporating generative AI and data-driven skills as key areas of learning.

This is the first time that KOSEN and a private company are working together to develop a curriculum with the explicit goal of long-term talent development.

Panasonic Newsroom Global visited a KOSEN college in Nara (Nara Kosen), one of the pilot schools selected for this initiative. We spoke with Tetsuo Honma, who is a professor from KOSEN Headquarters, and Hikaru Akiyama, who oversees development for manufacturing professionals in the Panasonic Group, about the significance of this initiative and about their hopes for its future.

There have been cases of collaborations between KOSEN colleges and private companies on individual themes before. Within the Panasonic Group, Panasonic Energy Co., Ltd. has previously worked with KOSEN on developing curriculum related to storage batteries and similar topics. This latest agreement, however, marks the first comprehensive partnership between KOSEN and any business group as a whole. So why do KOSEN colleges matter? One reason lies in the practical education that KOSEN has long emphasized.

“At KOSEN colleges, when students take on experiments and similar work, we teach them with the mindset that it’s fine to fail—the goal is to find a path toward a solution through that failure,” explains Professor Honma, who is leading this partnership at KOSEN Headquarters.

“As a result, students develop the mindset to confront challenges on their own and to take initiative. Through repeated experiences like this, they grow into professionals who can develop solutions on their own—and that has earned them high regard on the front lines of manufacturing.”

To respond to the latest societal trends, KOSEN colleges are also actively working in partnership with industry and government agencies to advance education in DX and GX fields—including AI, cybersecurity, robotics, semiconductors, and storage batteries.

In the AI era, the ability to confront challenges in society and in the workplace and to create new value, drawing on diverse knowledge, is essential. “I feel that students at KOSEN colleges develop the ability to approach challenges with an open mind and work toward solutions,” says Akiyama of the Panasonic Group. “They hold enormous potential as professionals who can help play a leading role in the AI era ahead.”

This initiative to develop professionals in partnership with educational institutions also reflects the Panasonic Group’s founding idea: “Develop people before making products.” The Group has long placed developing and empowering people at the core of its management philosophy. Today, it aims to help all employees UNLOCK their potential and keep taking on challenges, making the most of their abilities.

Under this philosophy, the partnership aims to help students draw out their own potential through their studies at KOSEN colleges and build the capabilities they’ll need to thrive in a wide range of fields in society.

Under the comprehensive partnership agreement between KOSEN and the Panasonic Group, the two organizations will build new learning environments aimed at developing the next generation of talent for manufacturing. This effort is built on three pillars: co-creating practical education, supporting advancement of education and research, and talent exchange.

In co-creating practical education, the two organizations will jointly develop curriculum that draws upon the Panasonic Group’s manufacturing technology and know-how, including in the areas of generative AI and data utilization. The aim is to develop curriculum through which students can comprehensively acquire the ability to solve on-site challenges and the skills to create new value.

To support the advancement of education and research, the partnership will provide lectures, supply teaching materials, and dispatch specialists, working to elevate the level of education and research and to improve the quality of education of KOSEN colleges across Japan.

To carry out these efforts effectively, the partnership will form a working group to promote exchange between Panasonic Group engineers and the faculty of KOSEN colleges. The partnership will also strengthen the collaborative framework, drawing on a cross-appointment system—in which engineers take part in educational settings and faculty take part in corporate business activities.

Specific talent-exchange initiatives are already underway. In fiscal 2026*, Nara Kosen (in Nara Prefecture) and Anan Kosen (in Tokushima Prefecture) were selected as pilot schools. In January 2026, faculty and staff from both schools visited the Manufacturing Training Institute of Panasonic Group. Discussions were held regarding the partnership’s direction going forward.

*In this article, fiscal years (FY) refer to the years ending March 31 of the stated year.

“During this visit, our faculty and staff were able to experience an actual manufacturing site firsthand, gaining insights they couldn’t have gotten in an educational setting alone. I feel that led to a real shift in mindset,” says Honma.

Participants remarked that they were struck by how closely the training content was tied to real-world work and practice. They said the visit reinforced how critical a deep understanding of fundamentals and safety is on the manufacturing floor. In group sessions held for each pilot school during the post-visit debrief, the following comments were heard: “We see an increase in faculty who have no work experience outside an educational setting, so contact with the outside world is an important opportunity for growth,” and “Hearing about the realities of corporate practice—how equipment is actually used on the manufacturing floor, for instance—also gives ideas for career education.”

Further, in February 2026, Panasonic Group employees visited the Nara Kosen as instructors to run a career education program. Designed for students at the stage where future career decisions are starting to feel real, the program encouraged them to think through how to build their own careers. The program included exchanges between instructors and students, drawing positive feedback from both sides. Building on that feedback, the plan for the year was set to prioritize faculty-oriented and student-oriented programs to create more opportunities for exchange and learning.

For the faculty-oriented program, discussions are underway on training, content development, and moving toward a concrete pilot. “Going forward, we want to continue creating opportunities, such as visiting each other and discussions between faculty and Panasonic Group employees, to deepen a self-sustaining partnership,” says Honma.

The career education program for students was first implemented at Kagawa Kosen (in Kagawa Prefecture) in June 2026, and implementation at a second school has already been scheduled. As for factory tours, four schools had confirmed their participation as of July 2026. “Through these opportunities, we want to build a track record, refine the program’s content, expand the number of participants and participating schools, and work toward creating a comprehensive program,” says Akiyama.

The Panasonic Group has been hiring large numbers of graduates from KOSEN colleges every year. According to Akiyama, this reflects a strong affinity between the Group’s philosophy and mindset KOSEN students develop through their education program —thoroughly responding to customers’ problems and on-site challenges under the Group’s Basic Business Philosophy of “The customer comes first”—and the earnest, sincere attitude that graduates from KOSEN colleges bring to everything they do.

“In fact, graduates from KOSEN colleges have been receiving high marks wherever they’ve been assigned. As the word has spread that we now have a framework to partner with educational institutions that train these kinds of professionals, requests have been coming in from companies across the Panasonic Group to have students from KOSEN colleges visit their factories,” says Akiyama.

Honma notes that another benefit of the comprehensive partnership is that it connects individual KOSEN colleges and the Panasonic Group not just through isolated points of contact, but across a broader network. There are 51 national KOSEN colleges in Japan, and the Panasonic Group has sites and factories spread across the country. As such, it’s easy to arrange regional visits and learning opportunities.

“Through this exchange, our faculty and staff are also getting a real feel for the sense of speed a company brings. It’s been very stimulating for us. We’re reaching out to KOSEN officials so that each member school can take advantage of this initiative and results from their experiences can spread across the KOSEN network. We are aiming to share knowledge for more advanced talent development from a mid- to long-term perspective,” says Honma.

As the partnership’s next step, “Summer School 2026” was held on September 3 and 4 to give students direct exposure to real-world manufacturing sites. It took place at the Manufacturing Training Institute as a part of a next-generation foundational technology education curriculum that KOSEN is advancing in partnership with industry and government agencies. “No matter how well students understand the theory they learn in the classroom, discovering that the real world works this way, or that a different method is deliberately used, will be a fresh experience for them. I hope this generates many new insights, lessons, and encounters that will be beneficial for their future,” says Honma.

Akiyama’s goal is to develop the momentum generated by this comprehensive partnership into a program that a wide range of companies can join, rather than keeping it as a closed activity limited to the Panasonic Group. He explains, “I hope we can build an ecosystem that supports Japan’s manufacturing foundation from the ground up and helps to sustain and strengthen it.”

Akiyama continues, “Even in the AI era, the importance of the role that people play never fades. I think that’s something you can only truly grasp by seeing engineers pushing one another to improve at the Manufacturing Training Institute. In this effort, I want to keep in mind how important it is to pass along knowledge, skills, and experience from person to person.”

Through this comprehensive partnership, KOSEN and the Panasonic Group will expand a sustainable framework for developing manufacturing professionals across Japan, going beyond producing one-off results.