Four layers behind the facility and environment exhibits — where the exhibitors actually clustered in the year heat countermeasures became mandatory (Part 5)

17th International Logistics Total Expo 2026 (LTT2026) exhibitor series, Part 5

On 1 June 2025 the amended Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health came into force in Japan. That was the day workplace heat-illness countermeasures stopped being best practice and became a legal duty.

The duty itself, however, is not about equipment. The newly added Article 612-2 requires employers to do two things.

Duty	Establish in advance, and make known to the workers concerned
① A reporting structure	Contact points and responsible persons, so that a worker with symptoms — or anyone who spots a worker at risk — can report it
② Written procedures	Removal from the task, cooling the body, medical attention where needed, emergency contact chains and destination hospitals

The duty applies to work carried out where the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) reaches 28°C, or the air temperature 31°C or above, and where that work is expected to continue for one hour or more, or for more than four hours in a day.

This is where warehouses enter the picture. The implementing circular states explicitly that indoor workplaces are included in the definition of work posing a risk of heat illness. Being under a roof does not put a site outside the scope. The circular goes further: where several employers work in the same workplace, both the principal employer and the contractors are subject to the duty. On a site where partner companies operate inside your premises, putting your own house in order is not enough.

A line worth drawing first — equipment does not replace the duty

You can install heat-shielding material and run fans, and duties ① and ② still stand. Having the equipment does not amount to having satisfied ① and ②. The order matters: structure and procedures come first.

On top of that, Article 614 of the same Ordinance states that where rest facilities are provided, it is desirable to lower the temperature and humidity inside them — by blocking direct sunlight, installing cooling equipment, using mist fans and so on. This is where equipment appears: on the desirable side, not the mandatory side.

Reading the facility and environment exhibits at LTT2026 as a group, the pitches clustered on that desirable side. And the interesting part is this: the largest cluster of exhibits had nothing to do with heat at all.

Four layers

Layer	What it changes
① Keep the heat out	Stop it at the roof and the outer walls
② Move the air	Let accumulated heat and moisture escape
③ Fix what is underfoot	Repair the floor itself
④ Reduce what comes out	Cut waste material, dust and soiling at source

① Keep the heat out

Reflecting or blocking radiant heat at the roof and the outer walls. Heat-shielding paints and heat-shielding sheets were both on show. The shared pitch was that the existing roof does not have to be replaced, and that the work can be completed in a short window even at sites that cannot easily stop operating. Lower the roof surface temperature, the argument runs, and the rise in indoor temperature is contained, which in turn lowers the load on air conditioning.

Some exhibits combined this with waterproofing and repair. A leaking roof and a hot roof are the same surface, so the thinking is to use one round of scaffolding for both.

What needs checking is the type and area of the roof, and the hours in which work can be done. Folded-plate, slate or metal cladding — the method changes even when the goal is the same.

② Move the air

Getting the heat and moisture that has already entered back out again. Large ceiling fans, fabric air ducts in place of metal ducting, and evaporative coolers were on display.

What stood out was that winter heating equipment sat alongside them in the same exhibits. These are not summer-only products; they are sold as year-round climate control. That is presumably also why condensation and humidity control appear in the same breath. Judged on temperature alone, running a fan is the answer — but for stored goods, condensation can be the greater threat.

What needs checking is ceiling height and the position of the beams. A large fan will not go in if there is nothing to hang it from.

③ Fix what is underfoot

This was the largest cluster of exhibits. It has nothing to do with heat. It divided broadly into three.

Repairing the floor itself — correcting settlement, tilt, steps and deflection by injecting resin to lift the slab without breaking up the concrete. The pitch centred on not having to move racking or machinery, and on not stopping operations.

Changing the floor surface — flooring materials and floor coatings for wear resistance, slip resistance and the passage of automated vehicles. Some repair materials could be applied in low-temperature environments: the use case is repairing the area around a doorway with a large temperature differential without shutting down a chilled or frozen store.

Adding something without construction work — portable ramps for crossing steps, anti-slip tape, line tape and film. The side that can be laid down the same day and taken away when no longer needed.

What happens when a floor is not level was spelled out in the exhibitors' own pitch copy: pallets cannot be stacked high, forklift tines will not enter the pallet, racking tilts, automated vehicles misbehave, gaps open under the shutters. The floor is not an isolated problem; it is the precondition for everything operating on top of it.

What needs checking is what travels across that floor. People, forklifts, or automated vehicles — the flatness each one requires is different.

④ Reduce what comes out

Reducing what a site produces — empty cardboard, expanded polystyrene, dust, soiling.

Compaction and volume reduction — machines that compress cardboard and waste plastics. The pitch rested on freeing up floor space, and on the fact that once compressed, the material can be handled as a recyclable commodity. Machines that melt and solidify expanded polystyrene back into plastic feedstock were also shown.

Cleaning — autonomous floor scrubbers and ride-on cleaning machines. Large areas covered by fewer people.

The air side — industrial air cleaners, air showers, and mats that strip debris from shoe soles and wheels. Equipment originally sold against dust and odour sat next to heat countermeasures under the same phrase: improving the working environment.

Several exhibits addressed birds roosting and nesting. A warehouse has few predators and a relatively stable temperature — so birds settle in, the explanation goes. That is a hygiene question, not a heat question.

Seen from the importer's side

What the four layers had in common was a design premise: do not rebuild the building. Cover the roof, hang a fan, inject under the floor, compress the waste — all of it arranged around not stopping operations. Retrofit products built for existing facilities, gathered under a single driver.

In import practice, sequence decides the outcome. Until you know which surface you are working on, you cannot choose the equipment. The roof, the ceiling, the floor, the doorway. Choose equipment before the surface is settled and you find the installation will not fit. Ceiling height, beam positions, the floor substrate, the delivery route — the building's conditions come first.

And back on the regulatory side: ① the reporting structure, ② the written procedures, ③ making them known to the workers concerned all remain, whatever equipment you install. Keep the equipment question and the duty question in separate columns. That part cannot be skipped.

Let us take the enquiries on collectively

Companies that exhibit at a trade show are waiting to be approached. The difficulty is that approaching them one by one means a stream of sales contact, including from firms whose terms do not fit. The more of them there are, the heavier that becomes — and comparing options stops being possible.

We hold an organised record of every exhibit at this show, and we handed our card to each company at the venue. Tell us which surface you need to address, over what area, and how long you can stop operating, and we will put the question to the firms whose terms fit, then come back to you with the answers consolidated. We will not pass your contact details to any of them without your agreement.

What we provide is information. We hold no distributorship or sales rights for any one company; we set out several methods side by side for the same problem. As a company engaged in importing and distributing pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and foods, we will also tell you how each option fits your packing configuration and storage conditions.

Primary sources consulted

• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare — Outline of the draft ordinance amending the Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health (material for the 175th session of the Safety and Health Subcommittee)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare — Circular Kihatsu 0520 No. 6 (20 May 2025), Strengthening heat-illness countermeasures in the workplace

This article organises trends on the basis of exhibit descriptions published by the organiser and information made public on each company's official website. No individual product or company names are given, and no comparison or evaluation of relative merit is made. The published information is as of August 2026. The scope of the regulations and the measures required vary with site conditions; whether they apply in a given case is for the competent authorities to determine.