Country: Japan

Toray, a leading fibre manufacturer company in Japan, in cooperation with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp, has come up with an innovative textile that is capable of monitoring the health of people, and in this case, company employees. This was revealed by the company’s president Akihiro Nikkaku.

Speaking at press conference in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture on Friday, Toray President Akihiro Nikkaku said, “We are going to strengthen the development and production of high-function, value-added textile products.” He also stressed that the new textile would focus on the graying population in Japan.

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The textile, called ‘hitoe’, is embedded with wearable sensors that can record a person’s heart rate and electrocardiogram. The synthetic fibre-maker envisions the new textile useful for construction site workers or workplaces with irregular shifts. It would enable their supervisors to receive a remote warning when the device detects worrying signals from an employee.

Earlier, Toray has also worked on health-enhancing fibres that contain ingredients that protect the skin. Toray via this newly developed textiles aims for ¥300 billion ($2.6 billion) in sales in healthcare-related business by fiscal 2020.

The Internet of Things (IoT), which is a network of physical objects like devices, vehicles, buildings and the like, embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, connected through the internet, is increasingly making its way into the manufacturing industries of Japan, including textiles.

IoT is already being used in a wide variety of sectors, including services industry and transportation infrastructure, in the United States and Europe. Japan has started moving in a similar direction. Textile manufacturer Seiren Co is one such comany, which has installed virtual changing rooms in department stores, particularly in Tokyo.

The company has adopted innovative digital dyeing technology Viscotecs to create such virtual changing rooms, through which shoppers can simulate wearing clothes of different sizes and patterns in front a large screen that is connected to a tablet computer. Seiren plants take orders via the Internet and start making the clothes to order. Shoppers receive the products about three weeks later.

Also Read –  Google files patent for interactive textiles

According to a Seiren official, creating such virtual rooms helps the company reduce inventory losses that eventually leads to reduction in costs.

IoT has recently garnered a lot of attention in many industries and countries. For instance, Germany has termed the application of IoT in manufacturing industries as Industrie 4.0, indicating that this is the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The governments are making earnest efforts to catch up with the latest trend –IoT. In this regard, the IoT Acceleration Consortium was founded to promote technological development and trials through governmental, industrial and academic collaboration in October 2015.

Meanwhile, US research firm Gartner Inc, in a study, has predicted that IoT will generate sales gains, cost cuts and other economic benefits valued at $1.9 trillion in 2020.

In a bid to support the Pakistani textile sector, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Yokohama is currently in discussions with the Pakistani government to chalk out possible avenues to assist the sector. It is among the Japanese development agencies that are working hard to increase the level of textile imports from the Pakistan.

Hideaki Shimizu, who served as an adviser in the textile sector to JICA for two years until 2015, has always believed in the potential of Pakistan. “Pakistan is traditionally a cotton-producing country, and has done well in recent years to integrate production and improve both upstream and downstream operations,” he said.

The current efforts by the development agencies of Japan is a consequence of a number of efforts taken last year. In 2015, JICA supported a delegation of Japanese businesspersons during Expo Pakistan, the country’s largest trade fair, and arranged a delegation of executives from Pakistan’s leading textile companies to Thailand. A Pakistan-Japan Textile Day was held in October 2015 that brought Japanese companies to Lahore and Faisalabad — a step to introduce manufacturers and buyers.

Daisuke Fukumori, Deputy Director of JICA’s South Asia division, said “We are currently in the negotiations stage, and information regarding the projects that Japan can undertake has not yet been confirmed.” He further stated, “Details of the final package will be designed to meet the needs of the Pakistani government, and the agreement should be completed within this year.”