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Seiren Co.
Seiren Co., Ltd. (セーレン株式会社, Seiren Kabushiki Kaisha) (TYO: 3569) is a Japanese fiber production and textile manufacturing conglomerate based in Fukui.[7][8] Seiren was the largest textile printing firm in Japan during the 1980s, and by 2000 exceeded the equivalent of $100 million in gross annual sales.[9] OverviewThe company's printing business covers apparel, promotional materials such as printed banners, automotive upholstery, and digital dyeing.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11] The company also develops and produces commercial medical, cosmetic, and polyester products which make use of the silkworm cocoon-derived protein sericin,[12][13][14][15] for which the company holds patents.[16] The company has 42 offices in 10 countries.[17] 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.[18] 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,[19] with other US offices in Farmington Hills, Michigan, near Detroit, and Irvine, California.[20] The company is a supplier to the American car industry,[21][22] as well as Toyota, and has received capital investment from the fellow Japanese company.[23] It also has supplied other Japanese automakers Nissan, Mitsubishi and Honda.[19] HistorySeiren traces their history to 1889[24] and the production of habutai silk fabric.[10] The company was founded by Eijiro Kurokawa and Ihachi Ueda.[4] 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.[24] The company incorporated as Fukui Seiren Kako Co., Ltd. and established the textile dyeing/finishing business in 1923.[10] Japan's textile industry attained its peak during the postwar period of growth, but subsequently declined.[24] Seiren first entered the electronics market in 1970.[10] Tatsuo Kawada (born 1940) joined the company in 1962 and became president in 1987, CEO in 2005, and Chairman in 2011.[3][2] He led the release of a textile car seat in 1976 which was a hit for the company and helped him get his promotion.[25] 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.[24] Kawada helped transform the company through vertical integration of the supply chain.[25] Seiren began to develop digital printing in 1989, and made inkjet printing available in addition to its analog process in 1991.[9][26] 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.[27][24] Viscotecs could print in 16.77 million colors, an improvement on the typical 20 colors at the time.[25] In 2005, the company acquired the textile division of Kanebo Cosmetics, which it turned around into a profitable business by 2008.[25] References
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