[Depth Analysis] About The New Changes Brought By Digital Technology, Japan'S 11 Textile Chiefs Say...



The Japanese textile industry has undergone tremendous changes in the past 70 years.

In view of the changes in the environment such as the appreciation of the square, the growth of textile imports, the diversification of consumer demand, and the growth of overseas markets, the enterprises are pushing forward the pformation of their career structure. Now they are not pursuing the scale of production, but are pursuing the policy of high originality and high value-added industries.

The business environment is changing. In the future, it will also face the deepening of the aging society and the reduction of labor force.

What is particularly concerned now is that with the rapid development of digital technology, we are ushering in a different era of change.

In addition to the rapid development of technology, digital technology has achieved a more pervasive price. This has also promoted the introduction of digital technology by enterprises, which opens the door to the unknown world.

People can see the changes brought by digital technology in many scenes.

For example, in the field of B2C, the rapid growth of enterprises running the electronic business platform has forced the existing retail industry, product manufacturing and wholesale industry to change their business models.

In addition to the convenience of changing the way consumers purchase, the operation platform of the enterprise as a selling party launched its own brand trend has also emerged, the direction of change has become confusing.

In the world of B2B, wholesale and retail businesses are linked through the Internet.

industry

A platform for planning companies and production plants has been launched.

Like the popularity of e-commerce in the B2C field, the increase of B2B's pairing platform has provided a new active platform for enterprises with weak financial strength.

In addition, all related enterprises are using digital technology to share information from factory to shop selling at all stages of production, and the trend of rationalization of commodity circulation is also being strengthened.

There are many enterprises involved in the manufacture of textile products from original yarn to needle weaving, dyeing and sewing.

So this trend will be dominated by big enterprises.

With the help of digital technology, the overall production structure of the supply chain can be further developed through the efficient use of the network. For the enterprises involved in production, whether they can join the circle will have a bearing on the future growth.

The mode of production of the product will also change, for example, the introduction of automated production lines and the unmanned sewing process.

It is not only limited to Japan, Southeast Asia and other places where the labor force is decreasing due to the aging of fewer children, it is also more and more difficult to ensure talents. Therefore, in order to make up for the shortage of manpower, the trend of automation will not stop.

This may facilitate the adjustment of production sites for the relocation of cheap labor.

The changes brought about by the evolution of digital technology have also improved the demand for talented people who can skillfully use the technology and the talents who can make use of this technology to create new businesses.

There has been a trend to train such talents.

In addition, in the past, manual work was carried out by robots or artificial intelligence. Naturally, there was also a discussion about what human beings should do in the future.

In the context of the evolution of digital technology that is believed to bring about the 4 industrial revolution, what direction will the textile industry develop in the future? This special interview will interview the heads of enterprises on their current performance and future policies, and how to predict the changes brought about by the popularization of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of things, robots and so on.

Set up an industrial information system

Sunshine letter two

Chief executive of Fury

New technologies such as the Internet of things and artificial intelligence are making great changes in the form of production and sales.

Under such circumstances, the president of sun letter two pointed out that "we must consider what human beings should do".

It is precisely because machinery or systems are becoming more and more highly valued that the added value that is not realized by machinery or system is more important.

Q: new technologies such as the Internet of things, artificial intelligence, robots and so on have also received high attention in the field of textiles.

Daylight: our company is also preparing to introduce AI in production.

If we can find out the slight negligence in the production process and the rate of analysis and processing in advance, it is possible to reduce the production loss.

In addition, RPA (Robotic Process Automation) has been introduced into accounting, finance and marketing management.

Robots are responsible for manual work in the past, avoiding mistakes and contributing to shortening labor hours.

In addition, retail companies, the group's ready-made clothing company, has launched the tailored service of automatic measurement of size.

With the introduction of IT and AI, intelligent textile and wearable devices have also established a production system to promote the development of health and comfort.

In these areas, building platforms is very important.

On the other hand, with the latest technology to promote automation and IT, we need to seriously consider "what human beings can do" in the coming era.

We must re emphasize how to create additional value that can not be made by machinery or system.

Q: what is the situation in fiscal year 2017?

Daylight: the whole industry has struggled slightly, especially the garment related businesses with women's clothing as the center.

On the other hand, sportswear related businesses perform well.

In the field of industrial materials, as the group of Di people, the structural reform has been completed, and its driving effect is gradually emerging.

Now, the company has 45 group business, and the combined sales are growing smoothly.

Q: in the current fiscal year, the organization has been readjusted.

Daylight: in April last year, it integrated the polyester fiber business of Tae man company, which is parallel to our existing industrial materials business.

So began in April this year as an industrial material department unified organization.

The industrial material business of the company is covered by airbags, tire blinds, rubber materials and other fields. The advantage of the industrial material business that is taken over from the polyester fiber business of the Termen company is short fiber and other non-woven materials.

Now, business and industry have been integrated into one, and the production and marketing system has been established from upstream to downstream.

Q: what are the topics and strategies for fiscal year 2018?

Daylight: first of all, it is necessary to give full play to the integration effect of industrial materials and enterprises and expand the cause of a dragon type.

It will also invest in enhancing the planning and production capabilities of filter materials, rubber materials, airbags and other advantages.

Teijin FRA Tire Cord (Thailand) has officially started production and sales of tire blinds.

Clothing industry continues to strengthen sales of fabrics to well-known sportswear brands.

Nantong Di Ren and ThaiNamsiri Intertex and other overseas subsidiaries will also invest in equipment to expand the production of high value-added products.

Further enhancing the sense of presence in the middle reaches of industry

Takashi Takashi

President and President of Osaka STYLEM

Takashi Takashi president (STYLEM president) stressed that "our company is located in the middle position of textile circulation, and we should further improve the function of production production and information dissemination, and get the approval of both buyers and sellers."

Q: your company started in 1864, and this year is 154th years. Plan to merge with STYLEM company in February 2019. What is the conception of business operation?

In the course of 154 years, we have made Japan become the Meiji Restoration of modern countries, and also fought many wars. We have risen from the ruins and become an economic power. The hard history is beyond our imagination.

In such a huge era of vortex, the company also changed the content of the business according to different periods, ushered in today's situation.

Basho Matsuo, a haiku poet in the Edo period, said that "it is not easy to be popular."

"Not easy" means invariance.

Even if the times change, there are also things that remain unchanged.

On the other hand, "popularity" is something that changes with time and things that must change.

I would like to pay tribute to those who have practiced these principles.

Q: there is a view that the Japanese clothing market is shrinking every year, which is a big problem for business.

The decline of population is a profound problem, not only about clothing.

The annual turnover of the company is more than 100 billion yen, of which fabric sales are about 500 billion yen.

If the fabric price is accounted for 1/10 of the clothing price, the company will provide fabric for 500 billion yen garments.

The annual sales volume of Japanese clothing market is 10 trillion yen, and the clothing supplied by our company accounts for 5% of the market share.

From the perspective of population dynamics, the Japanese clothing market will not increase significantly, but will continue to shrink.

Under such circumstances, the overseas market has become very important.

Our overseas sales exceeded 10 billion yen in fiscal year 2017, a two digit percentage increase compared with the previous year.

But overseas, there are many competitors in the European and American markets.

It is not easy to increase market share.

While it is not equally easy to grow in a significant Asian market, I am confident that the Chinese market will continue to grow at least 10 years in the future.

Ready to focus on China and invest in two aspects of production and sales.

Q: in 2019, major changes will be made in enterprises. What are the management subjects?

Long: since the popularity of the Internet, the popularity of smart phones and the progress of AI technology have made great changes in the circulation structure of fashion apparel in the world.

There are many problems to be solved in where, how to produce and how to sell.

Between us and buyers, we need to improve our functions to satisfy both sides.

This is the origin of Osaka company, which is our "not easy".

Our company is located in the middle position of textile circulation. We should further improve the function of production and information dissemination, and get the approval of both buyers and sellers.

Through the cooperation with dyeing factories to promote new products and so on, the number of cases has also been increasing.

Partners are enterprises with strong industrial advantages in various regions and industries.

Establish such partnership in Japan and the world.

Reliable manufacturing, fashion trends and fabric promotion, our company strives to become the strongest supplier of fashion business.

The company will reform the practice of production and marketing.

Half of Feng Island

President of the island

In response to the rapidly changing market environment, the company adopts various countermeasures.

One of them is the establishment of Corporate Venture Capital Fund (CVC).

Carry out IT venture investment and recommend IT related products to customers.

As a customer support, he also contributed to the Japanese environmental design company (Tokyo thousand Daejeon District), and invested in the real undertaking, trying to achieve the next stage of development.

Q: your company is challenging various new businesses. One of them is the establishment of CVC. Please introduce the progress.

Toyoshima: CVC, which was founded in late January last year, invested in IT ventures in Japan and abroad, and introduced the IT related products of these IT venture enterprises to our customers.

Now there are 6 enterprises to invest in.

There are also several enterprises under study.

Basically, it is a business that can solve the difficult problems of our customers. We also contribute to Japan's environmental design company through CVC to promote the entity business.

Japanese environmental design company operates the "BRING" project of recycling old clothing and reusing it in shops, and restores the recycled polyester garments into polyester resins.

The company and Japan environmental design company jointly launched projects to sell recycled polyester fabrics and garments using the raw materials.

Q: in January of this year, we also took over the "B2B TEXTILE" of the fabric NET website.

Toyoshima: the number of shops has increased.

But there is still much room for improvement in terms of user convenience.

In the future, we will improve display methods and search methods to improve convenience.

Q: what is the progress of fiscal year 2017 (up to June 2018)?

Harvest Island: revenue increased compared with the previous fiscal year, but profits decreased.

Income growth is brought about by cotton trading and a split product business, but profits are even more grim than planned.

This is not only due to the deterioration of the market situation, but also from the planning, production, sale and after-sales service of our company.

Q: what is the market forecast for the next fiscal year?

Feng Island: it is expected that the grim situation will continue for some time.

Although we have successfully obtained orders, we do not know if we can ensure proper profits.

In this regard, the next fiscal year will continue to be a grim situation in the current fiscal year, so as we have just said, we need to improve our business practices.

All costs are rising in production.

It is very important to improve the way of production, including cost, and so on.

Q: is the company committed to overseas sales?

Feng Island: the scale is very small and will strengthen overseas sales of materials and products.

But the Japanese market can also grow through improved management practices.

The market share of our products business accounts for only 1% of the total market, and there are still many unexplored areas to expand.

Whether it is fabrics, sewing products, clothing, non clothing areas will actively explore new customers.

Q: the company and LENZING company have obtained the right to sell the "TENCEL LUXE" of the refined cellulose fiber.

Feng Island: as a substitute for real silk, we focus on luxury brands.

Wood pulp is used as raw material for production in closed system, so it is also environmentally friendly and sustainable fiber.

TENCEL long fiber production is very difficult. Our company has been selected as a partner and will go all out to carry out its business.

Realizing the "visualization" of experience

Nishiyama Shigexiong

STC president of Toyo textile

Nishiyama Shigexiong, President of Toyo STC, said that "the trend of IT and automation in textile world is developing rapidly, and the new technologies that can handle large amounts of data in an instant" are very attractive.

Particular attention is paid to the "visible" experience of technical personnel, so that it can be produced in Japan and abroad in the same quality.

Q: what is the view from the perspective of textile industry for the application of logistics network and artificial intelligence?

Xishan: the textile industry has been a rapidly developing field of automation and IT.

With regard to the utilization of data, the textile industry began to apply statistics from a long time ago, and the production and quality management of multivariable analysis have long been popular.

But the technological innovations that are taking place now are brought about by the rapid increase in computing speed and communication speed of computers. It is very attractive that in the past, it took a long time to complete the processing.

Now the staff of Dongyang textile company also set up a seminar to discuss the future application of these new technologies.

In the functional materials business, the company has already set up many sensors in the film factory, producing and quality management through monitoring and data analysis.

The textile industry first introduced the logistics network technology in the dyeing process of the Toyama factory, especially the data from the Institute and the data at the mass production stage, and achieved some results.

In addition, in recent years, the cost of image recognition system has been dramatically reduced and popularized in the market.

Using image recognition, the company can instantly grasp the shortcomings of broken or dirty fabrics, and accumulate data that helps analyze the causes.

With these systems, the parts of the past depending on the experience and intuition of the professionals and operators can become "visible".

The opportunity to become the same quality of domestic factories and overseas factories is also of great importance in training talents.

Therefore, the company is also promoting the use of the Internet to connect overseas outlets.

Q: what is the performance in the 2017 fiscal year (up to March 2018)?

Xishan: textile business carried out inventory reduction in the first half of the fiscal year, so the second half of the fiscal year began to improve.

The cooperation between sportswear and large garment manufacturers has been successful. Our company's golf apparel has also been restored.

High density fabrics for feather clothing are booming.

The cooperation between underwear and large garment manufacturers has also achieved results, and this new demand for WELLNESS has also emerged.

Uniforms are popular in the food industry, such as white garments.

But sales of fabrics for Middle East ethnic clothing are not good enough.

Q: what are the topics and strategies for fiscal year 2018?

Xishan: in all fields, the theme of "advancing further and developing horizontal cooperation" has been put forward.

For this reason, the organization has been readjusted.

Last year, the group's Dongfang Technowool company was merged into Yu Xing Woolen Company and merged TOHO company to contract business corporation.

This year, within the STC company of Dongyang spinning, we merged the first business Undertakings Department and the fiber second business division, and became the organizational system for developing weaving and knitting business horizontally.

It is not expected that exports to the Middle East will resume in 2018, so that new products can be prepared in order to improve in 2019.

The basic strategy for this fiscal year is to wait for the Middle East market to improve, and to get profits from sportswear, underwear, uniforms and other businesses.

To this end, we will give play to the effect of organizational restructuring and promote development and sales.

Integration of development and sales capabilities

Mukai Kemi

Cola trade president

Coke Li Trading Company in fiscal year 2017, due to the strong sales of chemicals, the company's sales and profit growth, and achieved good results.

But the textile industry is dominated by clothing.

The company began to implement the new medium term business plan from the current fiscal year, which will re strengthen the skills of the manufacturers and strive to make the textile industry grow again.

Q: please review the performance in the 2017 fiscal year (up to December 2017).

Mukai: due to the strong sales of chemicals, the company's sales and profits grew, and achieved good results.

But the textile industry was a tough year.

Especially in the field of clothing, the situation is very serious.

In the past, the Middle East National Costume fabrics were cooled down because of the worsening local economy.

Formal dress material is also affected by the decline of demand due to changes in the social situation such as plain and white.

It is also committed to the sale of differentiated raw yarn, but sales have been poor since the second half of the fiscal year.

For this reason, factories also have to cut production, increase the fixed cost burden and oppress the profits.

But sales of sportswear and uniforms and materials are good, and sales of sew products have increased by more than 10% over the previous fiscal year.

Q: what is the topic of 2018?

Mukai: the company has three functions, namely, the sales company of the business community, the textile manufacturer, and the cola company. The core of the profit is the function part of the factory.

From the beginning of this fiscal year, the implementation of the new medium term business plan will re strengthen the functions of the manufacturers and make the textile industry expand again.

To this end, it is important to integrate development capabilities and sales development capabilities.

As one of them, promote the sale of water-soluble fiber "MINTVAL", conductive fiber "CLACARBO" and other original differentiated yarn.

Especially in MINTVAL, sales are still growing in the current fiscal year.

The main purpose of MINTVAL is to assist raw materials, and to produce twisted yarn after compounding with cotton, and to sell towels for a high proportion.

In recent years, the production of non twisted yarn towels in India is expanding, and drainage regulation is also being strengthened.

So the amount of dissolving is less than that of the usual water-soluble Vigny fiber, and the MINTVAL with less environmental burden has been well received, and sales are increasing.

And the trend of making soft jeans with MINTVAL has created new demands.

In addition, CLACARBO has been well received overseas because of its high performance.

Now the original differentiated yarn accounts for 35% of the sales of the original yarn, and will increase to 40% in the current fiscal year. The goal is that the final year of the medium term business plan will reach more than 50%.

Another important strategy is to expand the production of fabrics and sewing products in Vietnam.

So far, equipment investment has been carried out, and these results have been used to expand production in the 2018 fiscal year.

The goal is to provide one-stop solutions from fabric to sewing products.

As the sewing factory schedule is full, in order to achieve this goal, we need to continue to develop cooperative factories.

Now is the time to harvest the fruits that have been sown.

In the future, as the TPP (p Pacific Partnership Agreement) and other FTA (free trade agreements) progress, the importance of the Vietnamese region will continue to improve.

In order to use this area flexibly to improve infrastructure.

Strengthening independent development ability in raw material field

Bamboo year wide

Union president

"The artificial intelligence and the Internet of things are also very effective in the field of quality assurance," Zhu Yi Chi, a trading company, said.

In quality management, in order to avoid omission and bad production, we need to avoid artificial intervention as far as possible.

Q: now the trend of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and Internet of things is being formed. What kind of form do you think will be popularized in the textile field?

Bamboo year: more and more people hear the specific application trend in the textile field.

But in the field of B2B, in fact, it has not been popularized.

In addition, the concept of "Connected Industry" advocated by the Ministry of economic and trade province is not only a single enterprise, but a process that covers all processes and enterprises to integrate the information of the whole supply chain, and production and sales are linked together to improve efficiency.

The company started similar measures 30 years ago, and already has a network structure that delivers data online with the main processing plants, dyeing factories and logistics enterprises.

The problem is that such a system has not evolved since 30 years ago.

Therefore, the application of the Internet of things and artificial intelligence is effective under the premise of a certain scale, while the textile industry in Japan is carrying out multiple varieties and small batch quantification, and the overall scale is also shrinking.

There are many subjects to popularize new technologies.

On the other hand, new technologies in the field of quality assurance are likely to display their skills.

Now, in the field of quality assurance, there is a view that we should avoid artificial intervention as far as possible in order to avoid omissions and defects.

Therefore, if we can check the quality automatically by artificial intelligence or Internet of things, we can suppress omissions and malpractices.

In the future, we need to cooperate with the processing enterprises.

Q: what is the performance of fiscal year 2017?

Bamboo age: income grew slightly, but the company had a large number of imports. In 2017, because of the depreciation of the yen, the profits were oppressed.

Uniform sales of clothing and fiber are good while other goods are in serious condition.

Q: what is the key to fiscal year 2018?

Bamboo year old: we must give full play to the advantages of being a production oriented business community.

Focus on commodity development from raw yarn and raw cotton.

Yarn has been developed with Maker 's shirt KAMAKURA company for the super long cotton laminated yarn "PALPA" for shirting fabrics.

We are also prepared to develop second or third commodities.

Chemical fiber materials must also obtain such development results.

In addition, the development of material field is also very important.

The largest advantage of the company is the 2 component composite polyester.

The 2 component composite high strength yarns "MELSET" are being developed.

The company has the Development Department of processing technology, which has become the advantage of fabric development.

For example, the development of products for civil or construction purposes is being promoted.

The Japanese market will inevitably shrink in the future. Therefore, it is very important to open up overseas markets.

In the past, he participated in the International Functional Materials Exhibition "PERFORMANCE DAY" and the international safety machinery and Technology Exhibition "A+A".

We expect to achieve results in the future.

Production also uses UNITIKA TRADING VIETNAM, UNITIKA TRADING INDONESIA and UNITEX to expand overseas production.

The network of Hu Zhiming, Vietnam, has already had research and development functions and formed a system of overall technology development in Southeast Asia.

In order to specialize the differentiated goods, it is also necessary to increase the production of equipment for the production of differentiated commodities, so investment in equipment is also considered for future development.

Functional raw cotton is well sold in China

Ishihara Mixiu

President of near river silk

Ishihara Mixiu, President of the silk silk company, pointed out that the fourth industrial revolution was "the reform of the retail and circulation industry that is close to the consumer."

This reform is gradually approaching the manufacturers of intermediate products, requiring further shortening the delivery date.

Q: now the fourth industrial revolution is progressing. Is there any sense of it?

Ishihara: the first and 2 industrial revolution is a pure energy revolution.

When machines are used to do things previously done by manpower, the cost is reduced.

The third industrial revolution has achieved the efficiency of paction processing and office work through the popularization of computers.

The records used in the past were able to manage huge amounts of information through digital records, thus achieving efficient computation and data analysis.

The fourth industrial revolution is revolutionary for retail or service industries that sell goods directly to consumers.

The use of artificial intelligence in marketing or e-commerce sales has brought about dramatic changes in consumption patterns.

But for the manufacture of yarn or fabric intermediate products, we can not predict what benefits this revolution can bring.

Instead, there has been a great change in the way of sales in the lower reaches of the industry.

As long as the sales company can quickly purchase the best seller, the sales company can reduce the inventory, and the production side can not increase the production speed quickly.

In this way, production reform will not catch up with the pformation of circulation network.

Q: what is the financial situation in fiscal year 2017 (up to March 2018)?

Ishihara: in the 2016 fiscal year, the real estate was sold, the number of personnel was optimized according to the sales scale, and the retreat from Brazil's undertakings and other businesses was successful.

In the 2017 fiscal year, with the good momentum and a series of reforms in the field of rayon sales in China, profits have been greatly improved.

From the field of business, rayon staple fiber is the best.

In particular, functional cotton is very popular in China.

Japan's domestic demand is also booming.

The fabric and products business has been cut off because of never profitable products, but sales have been improved.

Q: Rayon raw cotton increased again after last autumn, in April this year?

Ishihara: last autumn was due to the high price of main raw material pulp. In April this year, the supply of caustic soda was tight, so prices had to rise.

Q: your company has relocated its address. What is the future policy?

Ishihara: as a summary of past reforms, the head office moved the address in March this year.

In the new office with a new look into the 101st anniversary of entrepreneurship.

This fiscal year will enrich functional distinctions of functional rayon.

The main way of producing artificial silk is to use the viscose method of carbon disulfide, and other manufacturing methods to invest in the equipment, so that all kinds of materials can be mixed into the rayon.

The processing methods of disposable products such as facial mask and wiping cloth can also be diversified.

If you want to make rayon all kinds of functions, please consult with our company.

Diversify single commodity

Tetsuo Ikeda

Komatsu president

Komatsu scouring company 2018 fiscal year (up to March 2019), in the case of rising production costs, believes that only by changing product varieties can not fully absorb the cost rise, so efforts to sell prices to shift costs.

On the other hand, President Ikeda Tetsuo said that "selling valuable commodities is the most important", and promoting horizontal and vertical cooperation to strengthen the development of new commodities.

Q: what is the expected progress of the financial year?

Ikeda: as in last fiscal year, the field of clothing will continue to make up for Japan's domestic struggles with overseas sales. Because of the appreciation of the yen in the exchange rate market, it is also worried about the impact of the exchange rate.

Sticking to the base cloth is also due to the re pricing of drugs. Therefore, it is also an important topic to improve the production efficiency and rationalize the response.

Q: what is the situation of Komatsu scouring (Suzhou) Limited, a subsidiary of China?

Ikeda: Komatsu scouring (Suzhou) company achieved profit in January 2018 to 3 months according to plan, and its performance recovered smoothly.

China's domestic sales strategy streamlined the sales target and explored it successfully.

Exports to Italy LIMONTA and through international sales department to European and American famous sports down garments have also increased smoothly. Now the production equipment of 2 million meters per month is running at full capacity.

According to the present commodity structure, if we can produce at full load, we will be able to make profits, so we can get a lot of benefits in the future if we maintain full load production.

Q: are all production costs rising in the current fiscal year?

Ikeda: with raw fuel as the head, all kinds of costs have increased by more than 10%. Therefore, even if sales increase, profits may still be greatly reduced.

It is only by self-reliance that efforts can not fully absorb the cost increase. Therefore, it is not only to replace the production varieties, but also to shift the cost to the price for independent sales and order production.

Q: is the key issue in this fiscal year a shift from cost to price?

Ikeda: the most important thing is to sell valuable goods.

Even if prices rise, the basic price is determined by the balance between supply and demand.

If sales are equal to other companies, they will become simple price competition.

It is important to provide products with added value not only for goods, but also for quality, delivery date and other services.

In addition, to increase production efficiency and reduce wastage, earnings are hidden in factories and there are still many parts to be discovered.

Q: what is the progress of streamlining of varieties?

Ikeda: the fabric sold by oneself also reduced the purchased grey fabric from 10 to 5, and made 20 kinds of fabrics for sale.

MONALISA+S, which is working with STYLEM, is also one of them.

It is our company's strength to reduce varieties and produce high value-added products.

In addition to "MONALISA+S", the "Karl KarlKS", which is working with I.S.T company (Shiga Prefecture, Tianjin), has also used 4 products to achieve various styles of fabrics. Even the single product mass production has become a variety of products, which is the characteristics of high quality processing.

Our company has great advantages in this regard, and will take advantage of it and strive to achieve a profit rate of 10%.

Developing new products and new fields

Planting trees

President Tamura Ko

Ueki Hiroyuki, President of Tamura Ko, said, "we will continuously improve the function of new products." from the beginning of this fiscal year, the new three year plan will promote the development of commodities suitable for the elderly in the household area.

Clothing should also open up areas for growth.

Materials related businesses will determine the strengthening measures of the supply chain.

Q: would you like to review the performance in the 2017 fiscal year?

Tree planting:

clothing

Because of the severe market environment, even if sales are reduced, it is not surprising, but through efforts to make sales exceed the previous fiscal year.

But the unit price of delivery was reduced in the second half of fiscal year.

That is, the number is increasing.

In order to cope with the tight delivery deadline caused by the strengthening of China's environmental regulation, the growth of funds has resulted in a slight decrease in profits.

The 2017 fiscal year is the final year of the ninth medium-term plan, so there are still some regrets. But if we can effectively push forward production management, factory preparation, and develop new materials with high added value, there is still a great possibility of profit growth in the financial year.

Q: what are your views on the business environment in the 2018 fiscal year?

Planting: the difficulty of production is undoubtedly rising.

Because there is no particularly popular commodity in the market, it is necessary to deal with fast selling goods with QR, which leads to the return of production to China.

But at the same time, we must create goods that can be accepted at low cost. Therefore, in order to ensure profits, the production will continue to shift from China to ASEAN.

The price range continues low price, so the materials available are very limited, so it is difficult to achieve differentiation.

Therefore, material preparation and material preparation are essential.

The key to product industry is whether we can build an in-depth cooperative relationship.

ASEAN production will continue to increase production lines and develop new factories.

Led by Vietnam, it will also increase the production of Burma and Kampuchea which have been temporarily stagnant.

Q: will the new medium-term plan begin in the current fiscal year?

Planting: now 65% of the company's sales are clothing related, 23% is related to materials, and 12% is household related products.

Although the proportion of homes has been reduced, there are still opportunities for growth through the development of goods and services for the care and elderly people.

Cooperate with buyers and customers to improve the content of commodities, and strive to develop suitable commodities and business flow for the elderly.

In the field of textile related industries, we should not only establish the quality of "absolutely error free", but also promote cooperation between the parent company and its subsidiaries and subsidiaries.

At the same time, we should strengthen production networks and take China and ASEAN as targets to strengthen our judgement.

In recent years, the garment industry has devoted itself to developing areas beyond women's wear.

Sports and leisure and men's clothing and other areas that have not yet been fully developed are new customers for the company.

Through cooperation with subsidiaries, such new customers will be added.

There are still many things to do.

Fashion is unpredictable whether sales are successful.

According to the data accumulated in the past, we can analyze the tendency or try to optimize, but it is difficult to recommend completely new products.

I think the manufacturing function must continue to be honed.

Paying attention to profits, "small and big companies"

Nakano Mitsuo

Fuji Textile Holdings president and President

In the mid term business plan of Fuji textile holding company, "accelerating 1720", the first two years were located in the foundation period.

Nakano Mitsuo, President and chief executive, said that "the goal was achieved in the first year".

It is considered that the company should be a "small and large company". In order to achieve this goal, it is very important to improve operating profit.

Q: now the fourth industrial revolution is going on. How do you feel about it?

Sino wild: the fourth industrial revolution is the use of artificial intelligence and the Internet of things, robots and so on, so that the connotation of the company changes.

There is no real sense of textile, rather than textile materials and chemical industry. The demand for these technologies is very strong, and we feel that progress is deeper than expected.

Q: what are the views on the progress of the electricity supplier?

Sino wild: will continue to expand.

For the company, it is one of the most important sales channels.

The key is talent. Even if we want to hire talents, it is difficult for such talents to compete with companies.

And we can't get progress just waiting for it. So two years ago, the company began to train talents inside.

With regard to commodities, the company is developing its products in the range of underwear and underwear, clothing and T-shirts.

In the past, the company was dominated by men's clothing and felt that the market was saturated.

In addition, "BVD Ladies" has increased awareness through publicity, and sales are growing steadily.

Therefore, it is an important topic of development to develop commodity groups that can be purchased instantly through the Internet.

In addition, eliminating the return and inventory is also a problem, not producing surplus goods, and achieving the right amount as much as possible.

If there is a return, we need to deal with the return. If there is stock, it will generate management fees.

It has been saying "no profit, no business", so reducing inventory can generate profits.

Q: fiscal year 2017 is the first year of the mid term business plan. What is the situation?

Sino wild: almost the same number as originally announced.

The 2020 target of the mid term business plan "accelerated 17-20" is very high, so the degree of completion is also low if it deviates from its route.

We have positioned the first to 2 years as the foundation of consolidation, and we have effectively accomplished the objectives and tasks.

Q: what strategy will be adopted in 2018?

Sino wild: to promote three key businesses - grinding materials, chemical industrial products, textile growth.

We hope to make our company a "small and big company", so operating profit is an important element.

First of all, textile industry must ensure that the operating profit rate reaches at least 5%, followed by a target of above 10%.

The operating profit margin of the general textile industry is 2% to 3%, and we must do our best to increase the operating profit rate.

If the business environment changes, it is necessary to change the way of operation according to the environment.

And changing the flexibility of the business itself will become necessary in the future.

Promote products with "face" instead of "point"

Xi Zeming

Asahi Asahi ADVANCE, the Minister for the enforcement of professional services

Nishizawa Aki, Minister of fiber enforcement at the ADVANCE company of, pointed out that "promoting the use of IT is due to the shortage of manpower and the reform of working methods".

Now the company has already used AI to engage in commodity development and so on, and it may also sell the sensor and system of Asahi group as a manufacturer.

Q: has IT's new technology begun to spread in the textile industry?

Nishizawa: for example, RFID is spreading rapidly.

This trend is still due to shortage of manpower, coupled with the need to improve business efficiency in the trend of work style reform.

In addition, skilled workers in upstream areas such as raw yarns are decreasing. This is also a problem that can not be ignored.

How to pfer and replace skilled craftsmen's technology can make full use of artificial intelligence or Internet of things in this field.

The company is also promoting the use of new technologies, such as the introduction of Materials Informatics, which develops data through artificial intelligence, to improve the speed of material development in the past depending on the experience or intuition of technical personnel.

In addition, Asahi group also operates sensors and systems for the Internet of things, and provides them to the textile industry as manufacturers.

At this time, our company's role is to design the most suitable software program for textile.

Q: what is the performance in the 2017 fiscal year (up to March 2018)?

Nishizawa: the sales volume and profit of textile industry have increased. The overall situation is good, especially the use of copper and silk fiber "bingba" outer garment fabric and elastic needle woven fabric sales are very good.

With the expansion of new fields such as sports and leisure, elastic fabrics have become more conventional.

In addition, due to the cold winter last year, cold proof products such as raw yarn for tights are also well sold, and outdoor products are booming.

Materials related fields, non-woven fabrics used for one-off pot keeping and PLA non-woven fabrics used in tea bags have good sales momentum.

Q: what is the focus of fiscal year 2018?

Nishizawa: the higher expectations are airbag packaging materials and so on.

Airbag packaging materials are being invested in equipment for production in China.

In addition, it will increase the cause of health care.

As there are many uses across the Department, we are studying how to integrate.

Wearable devices will also launch new products, as well as with the Asahi group's first aid medical device manufacturers ZOLL Medical cooperation possible.

　　

clothing

The field will promote the pformation from "OEM to ODM" and expand from yarn to yarn.

Fabric

To the final product of the dragon business.

At this point, cooperation with garment manufacturers is very important. Now many cooperation is always the "point to point" relationship between the two sides, and it should be extended to the "face-to-face" relationship between enterprises and enterprises.

Medium and long term themes include "environment", "safety" and "aging society". We must expand development and sales of these themes.

Now the United Nations has also put forward the SDGs (sustainable development goal) and needs to build a business model that follows this guideline.