Kurabo International, Japan’s textile trading firm, has selected Lectra’s fashion software and hardware solutions. Supporting the fashion and apparel industry, Lectra offers PLM and CAD software, cutting room solutions and expert services to develop garments, accessories and footwear. Kurabo is primarily engaged in manufacturing of textiles and chemicals.
Kurabo International owns and operates plants in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, but the company processes its most complex orders in Japan, where employees have the skills and experience required to handle delicate fabrics, intricate details, complicated patterns, and small-batch orders.
Hiroyasu Kamohara, Chairman of the Board for Kurabo International said, “Manufacturing domestically is getting increasingly expensive, but keeping production going in Murakami and Takeda is important to us because it gives us more control over product quality. With Modaris, we can check colour and fit quickly and more accurately.”
“We save on time, labour, and materials because we now need 20 per cent less samples than before. Lectra has helped make our product-development process faster and more precise, so that we are still cost-efficient, despite the fact that our production costs are higher than if we were manufacturing overseas,” he added.
Kurabo’s Takeda factory was primarily staffed with highly skilled employees who did their cutting by hand, but many were reaching retirement age, with nobody to replace them. As their numbers dwindled, the yield rate for small-volume orders dropped, and cutting efficiency decreased. Kurabo decided to offset the skills gap left by its aging workforce with a CAM solution. Pleased with the results they had achieved with Modaris, they added Lectra’s marker-making software Diamino and Vector fashion cutting machines to their operation.
Diamino’s optimised markers, coupled with the Vectors’ speed and precise, zero-buffer cutting, improved quality, and reduced fabric waste. With Vector’s easy handling, fewer people were needed to manage the cutting process. The product-development and production processes in Takeda and Murakami are smoother than ever, and overall efficiency at the factories has increased by more than 10 per cent.
