In a conventional textile production process, changing warp yarn basically requires the manual preparation of 5,000 to 10,000 threads. It is indeed a painstaking and time-consuming task that must be done whether for the production of 20 or 2000 items of clothing. This has proven to be a bottleneck for the growing needs in recent years for multi-product, small-lot production. This problem was solved by the world’s first multi-product, small-lot textile production system for which the “Prime Minister’s Award “Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award”” was jointly awarded to Katayama Co., Ltd. along with the Kyoto Institute of Technology, Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Technology, Murata Machinery, Ltd., and certain local textile corporations. This system can make optional lengths of warp yarn in up to nine colors, and weave textiles of different colors at the same time without having to change the thread packages. This system achieves a cost reduction of 39 to 81%, and also considerably reduces the amount of raw material waste.
Katayama Co., Ltd. http://www.katayama-s.co.jp/
Established in 1913. As a leading trading firm handling textile machines as part of the local textile industry in the Banshu area, Katayama Company is engaged in machine sales, development, and after-sales service. Mr. Shozo Katayama became the company’s fifth president in 2000. This prizewinning system has also received the “Small and Medium Enterprise Award” from Japan Textile Exchange Plaza in 2004, the “Excellence” prize in the “17th Small and Medium Enterprise New Technolgy/Product Award” from the Resona Foundation for Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion in 2005.
Banshuori Textile has history going back 200 years. Nishiwaki City and its vicinity is still one of the largest textile production bases, supplying 90% of domestic shirt fabrics. Due to the recent rise of low-price Chinese and other products, however, the production volume has plunged to one-third of the peak level. Mr. Katayama, who “grew up listening to the sounds of weaving machines as a child,” took the initiative to devise a breakthrough to this predicament in 2000.
“Though the market was demanding individualized products, the production system was still structured to cater to mass production. I always thought that there would be no tomorrow unless a shift was made to small-lot multi-production.”
He first of all paid attention to a large amount of waste yarn (surplus yarn) discarded from the machines. In conjunction with the Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Technology, he developed a technology for producing colorful textiles by combining redundant yarn that would otherwise be discarded. This technology was recognized with awards
received in certain competitions.
However, the local community and client apparel businesses were far from enthused about it. “True, we came up with something new. But, the machines use the waste yarn as a raw material, so you would never be able to produce the same things again. We were told that, ‘this is not something we would really buy.’”
Nevertheless, that did not discourage Mr. Katayama and the Institute. Through trial and error, they came up with the idea of “freely spinning warp yarn which determines the color of textiles.” Conventionally, each time a textile design is changed, the weaving machine had to be stopped and 5,000 to 10,000 threads of warp yarn had to be manually prepared all over again. The idea was that by preparing a single warp yarn of multiple colors that changed at variable lengths, textiles of different designs could be woven through one continuous machine operation. On Mr. Katayama’s initiative, a joint project was launched, involving academic, business, and governmental circles.
The "Arrange Winder" which spins threads provided from the backside to make warp yarn
Mr. Katayama looks back saying, “The most difficult part was accurately measuring the yarn length.” Mechanical measurement is a tough job, since yarn stretches when pulled, thus entailing a level of precision to sharply align multiple designs.
“Trial weaving would result in the misalignment of designs, but when we attempted to forcibly coordinate alignment, the yarn would get twisted. We repeated many failures like that.”
In the trial stage, they made some “unrealistic requests” to local factories. At times they were yelled at, “No more business with you!” In the midst of such a standstill, Mr. Katayama reiterated a simple phrase, “Let’s pass on our local textile heritage to the next generation.”
“This slogan gradually gathered local empathy, and we began receiving various ideas of wisdom. We asked for cooperation from more than 70 professionals at 20 local businesses, in addition to the prizewinners this time.”
In 2003, their endeavor was rewarded by the completion of the “Arrange Winder,” an epoch-making textile production system, the first of its kind in the world. “Finally, we felt that we made it,” says Mr. Katayama with a sense of relief. But as the saying goes, a natural disaster struck when least expected. In October the following year, Typhoon No.23 devastated the Osaka-Hyogo area, with chest-deep mud and water flooding their office. Taking refuge in a second floor room with his colleagues, he thought, “The company and the developed machine were finished.”
After the mud and water subsided, the situation was in shambles with everything, the floor, walls, and their difficult-to-develop “Commercial Machine No.1” covered in mud. Three months later, however, the machine was restored to its original condition, instead of being scrapped. The workers who participated in the project conducted a thorough overhaul cleaning of the machine daily after their regular work hours.
“It strengthened our attachment and pride in developing a machine that was the first of its kind in the world. It also renewed my appreciation for the cooperation and support from the monodzukuri professionals I worked with.”
Introducing this system can achieve a cost reduction of 39 to 81% in textile production. This represents a level that is sufficiently competitive with Chinese manufacturers. The machine is also capable of weaving colorful designs previously thought to be difficult. Moreover, waste material can be reduced by 66 to 87%. Up until now, 45 machines have been sold, mainly to local textile companies and with five units delivered to Portugal and Germany.
Mr. Katayama is now focusing on “ultimately small-lot” production in order to receive orders for sample textiles.
“If we can achieve production at the ‘Chinese cost level, reduce our delivery time by half, and offer 200% better quality,’ sample orders from all over the world will come to Japan. In other words, the latest information about fashion trends will be ours.”
The Japanese textile industry was once labeled a declining industry. Now, a counterattack has begun with a weapon embodied by a new machine in which the wisdom of the local textile industry is crystallized.
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