In 1912 a Nagoya dinnerware maker refused to fund the Okura family’s plan to make porcelain toilets, since Japan had no household sewers to connect them to. Father and son paid for the research lab themselves, and in 1917 the sanitary ceramics arm was spun out as its own company, built in Kokura for the fuel, the clay, and the port. The Nagoya parent kept the dinner plates and is now Noritake.

The company’s spinoff took a name meaning roughly “Oriental ceramics,” which it shortened to four letters in 1970. Its second business makes a ceramic disc a little wider than a 300mm wafer, which holds that wafer flat inside a plasma chamber using nothing but an applied voltage.

In FY2026 that ceramics division earned ¥28.9 billion. Every toilet, faucet, and bathroom sold worldwide brought in ¥24.8 billion. The component shares its name with the part of a drill that grips the bit.

Question: Name the company and the component.

CLUES

Its most famous product is a heated seat launched in June 1980, sold as the Washlet.

SPOILER ALERT: ANSWER BELOW

Answer: The company is TOTO Ltd. (originally Toyo Toki).
The component is the the electrostatic chuck.

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