Seiren Co.

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Overview

The company's printing business covers apparel, promotional materials such as printed banners, automotive upholstery, and digital dyeing.[3] With over ¥140 billion in sales in 2024, 70% of which is overseas, Seiren spends over ¥6 billion in R&D annually as of 2024. The company also produces materials for construction, environmental, fashion industry, electronics, and medical industry products.[4] In addition to the majority of their sales coming from outside Japan, Seiren also establishes regional manufacturing plants to bring lead times and cost of transport down.[5] The company also develops and produces commercial medical, cosmetic, and polyester products which make use of the silkworm cocoon-derived protein sericin,[6][7][8][9] for which the company holds patents.[10]

The company has 42 offices in 10 countries.[11] In Japan, the company operates 11 subsidiaries and a second HQ in Tokyo as well as branches in Osaka, Nagoya, and sales offices in Hiroshima, Atsugi, Toyota, Wako, and Hamamatsu.[12] Seiren North America, LLC, the company's American subsidiary, is headquartered in Morganton, North Carolina where it has done business under the name Viscotec Automotive Products,[13] with other US offices in Farmington Hills, Michigan, near Detroit, and Irvine, California.[14] The company is a supplier to the American car industry,[15][16] as well as Toyota, and has received capital investment from the fellow Japanese company.[17] It also has supplied other Japanese automakers Nissan, Mitsubishi and Honda.[13]

History

Seiren traces their history to 1889[18] and the production of habutai silk fabric.[4] The company was founded by Eijiro Kurokawa and Ihachi Ueda.[19] The company's early business specialized in a "refining" process of removing impurities from silk fabric sent from Kyoto, which gave the company its name.[18] The company incorporated as Fukui Seiren Kako Co., Ltd. and established the textile dyeing/finishing business in 1923.[4] Japan's textile industry attained its peak during the postwar period of growth, but subsequently declined.[18] Seiren first entered the electronics market in 1970.[4]

Tatsuo Kawada (born 1940) joined the company in 1962 and became president in 1987, CEO in 2005, and Chairman in 2011.[20][21] He led the release of a textile car seat in 1976 which was a hit for the company and helped him get his promotion.[22] The company faced an existential crisis due to Japanese restrictions on textile exports to the US starting in 1971, contemporaneous oil supply shocks, and a strong yen caused by the 1985 Plaza Accord. During this time, Kawada took over as president, and the company began working on a sample printer to create patterns on fabric for mass production.[18] Kawada helped transform the company through vertical integration of the supply chain.[22]

Seiren began to develop digital printing in 1989, and made inkjet printing available in addition to its analog process in 1991.[3][23] The company was an innovator in a proprietary "Viscotecs" ("VISual COmmunication TEChnology"), a type of late-1980s inkjet printing process which enabled customers to custom-print designs on T-shirts, an early example of mass customization.[24][18] Viscotecs could print in 16.77 million colors, an improvement on the typical 20 colors at the time.[22]

In 2005, the company acquired the textile division of Kanebo Cosmetics, which it turned around into a profitable business by 2008.[22]

References

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