The Experts - Showa CO., LTD

"We Japanese have concentrated on and achieved excellence in quality control, just in time delivery and cost."
Tetsuro Takasugi, President

How much important is technological innovation in your company?

At this moment, many of our clients need up to date fabrics. Especially if they have never seen them before.

 

Many Japanese textile manufacturers must implement technological innovation, because we need to add much more value to our products. We are struggling with technological methods, not price/value. Price/value is more important for other countries/companies, like China.

 

In other words, we need to make original fabrics/products to show our competitive advantage. Of course, we need to continue to pay attention to quality and delivery and production costs, but the most important thing for us right now is technological innovation.

What are the key aspects of your products?

We Japanese have concentrated on and achieved excellence in quality control, just in time delivery and cost, Showa is a prime example of this.

 

Even our denim products are more elegant and luxurious. Many other denims are used for casual wear, like jeans and jackets, but our denim is cleaner, and more suitable for use in high end maison products made by brands in Paris and Milan.

 

This because our denim is blended with highly sophisticated yarns, like silk, wool, tencel, cashmere and nylon, giving them a more elegant hand. This aspect was carried over from our very first products, because we began producing our yarn dyed designed products for womenswear in Japan.

How much important is the human factor in your company?

In Showa, we design, produce and deliver our fabrics. We have a full production line system in Japan that includes designing, dyeing, sizing, weaving and washing.

THESE ARE MAINLY DONE BY PEOPLE, NOT AUTOMATIC MACHINES

 

These are mainly done by people, not automatic machines. So we preserve our special quality, like hand feel, coloring, draping, and so on.

 

These things cannot be accomplished with automation. And our originality was made by human resources about yarn, dyeing, weaving and washing.

 

This is especially important in creating new fabrics: it can only be done by people, exchanging ideas. But we need to confirm that those human resources will be translated into AI in the near future.