About GUNZE
Reseach & Development Production Activities
Research & Development
Gunze's R&D traces the company's ongoing efforts to providing high-quality products by studying the latest technologies and using core technologies nurtured over Gunze's over 110-year history.
Milestones in Gunze's Technology Development
Since its beginning, Gunze has consistently introduced advanced products to the marketplace while maintaining a "quality first" policy. Its R&D efforts to create its own technologies have been supported by its stance as a technology-centered company. Presently, our Shiga and Kyoto Research Laboratories are the centers of Gunze's efforts to develop powerful products and technologies that meet the needs of our times. While responding to diverse customer needs, Gunze also strives to develop new markets by promoting project team activities with sharply focused targets.
Gunze's R&D originated from efforts to improve the breeding of silkworms, which was related to the company's founding business. Later, Gunze changed its business lines from silk production to undergarments and hosiery, and still later expanded to include fields such as plastic films, engineering plastics and electronic components. Drawing on its reservoir of technologies built over the years and spanning various fields, Gunze took the first step toward commercializing the functional film-based devices led by the New Business Development Center, a division under the direct control of the President. Gunze will continue to accept the challenge of developing new growth domains.
Milestones in Gunze's Technology Development
Production Activities -"Quality first" policy supported by "technology-centerd management"-
Gunze's business operations aim to contribute to society through quality products. Production－the key to its business practices－emphasizes a commitment to quality and technology supported by its stance of "technology-centered management."
Customer focus in production and a commitment to quality
Gunze's customer-focused approach is based on its dedication to enhancing the quality and reliability of its products while strengthening communications with consumers. In recognition of this, Gunze won the 2002 Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award for exemplary consumer-oriented practices. In conformance with its "quality first" policy,Gunze has established exacting quality and process control systems in order to ensure safety and security for its customers. Ongoing activities include TQC and TPM initiatives as well as ISO certifications. Along with globally expanding production practices, Gunze makes sure that products produced anywhere in the world meet its common global quality standards.
Technology-centered management
Since its founding, Gunze has maintained an emphasis on technology. This continues today across all sectors of its apparel and functional solutions businesses, driving the development of proprietary technology-supported products, production technologies and equipment, as well as innovation in production. To create new business categories, Gunze is promoting high-fashion and high-performance products in the apparel business. In functional solutions, the same drive is reflected in the production of engineering plastics, and in the combination of various characteristic technologies and improvement of functionality based on mechatronics. These efforts resulted in a new undergarment category called "casual innerwear" and several highly acclaimed new products. These include the ECO MAGiC line of environmentally sound undergarments, which was named one of the top ten new products for 2004 by the Nikkan Kogyo (Business & Technology Daily), one of Japan's leading newspapers. Gunze's circular polarized touch panel also won the "Advanced Display of the Year 2006" Grand Prize award. In fiscal 2007, Gunze also launched a production innovation initiative named "G-TECH 1/2.*" Through these efforts, Gunze strives to solidify its technology- and quality-focused management base and offer products that earn enhanced customer support for the Gunze brand. * "G-TECH 1/2" is an initiative designed to solve most important issues by setting targets for cutting losses in half and doubling efficiency.