"The word monozukuri has only been in use for 15 years or so. In 1998, the Japanese Prime Minister’s Office set up a ‘monozukuri kondankai (consultative council on monozukuri)’ and enacted the Basic Law for Promoting Monozukuri Foundation Technology. Its purpose was to reverse the trend of de-industrialization and hollowing out that Japan was experiencing after the end of the Japanese financial bubble in the 1990s by reaffirming Japan’s strengths in manufacturing. Professor Takahiro Fujimoto of the Manufacturing Management Research Center at the University of Tokyo is Japan’s most renowned monozukuri theorist. He has defined monozukuri as “the duplication of design data into a material.” He has also called it the “art, science and craft of making things."