Technology Strategy

Manufactured Capital Cultivated Since Our Founding Gunze has a history that spans 130 years.
Since its founding as a silk-reeling company, it has operated under the philosophy, "producing fine and elegant thread," and it has grown guided by three principles: an unwavering commitment to putting quality first, co-existing and prospering together with its stakeholders, and the establishment of an integrated production system.
These principles have supported the Company’s steady growth and progress.
The manufacturing mindset of delivering superior quality at fair prices symbolized by the Company’s innerwear slogan, "Golden quality for silver prices," remains deeply rooted in all of its plants today, transcending its lines of business and generations.

Strengths and Challenges in Manufactured Capital Building on the technological assets it has cultivated over many years, Gunze has extended the technologies it developed in the apparel business into growth fields, such as medical products and engineering plastics.
In the medical business, for example, we have focused on the keyword "bioabsorbable," applying knitting and yarn-processing technologies developed in the apparel business to meet needs of medical practices.
This fusion has enabled us to create distinctive products, such as Bioabsorbable reinforcement felts, enabling Gunze to transform these technologies to provide differentiated products unmatched by competitors.
In engineering plastics, our fluoropolymer filter support materials are textiles that add structural and functional value, in addition to the inherent properties of the resin itself.
This is another strong example of the transfer of apparel-derived technologies into new domains.
Gunze’s strength lies in its ability to transcend technological boundaries and apply its expertise across many fields.
We believe our cross-disciplinary ability to create new products from both functional and structural perspectives is the true source of our competitiveness.
At the same time, the business environment surrounding manufacturing has been rapidly changing and growing more complex in recent years, making it difficult to continue to be competitive using traditional approaches alone.
For Gunze, strengthening our manufactured capital, the foundation of manufacturing, has become an indispensable part of the business and a key management priority.

Continued Innovation in Manufacturing Technologies Since VISION 2030 stage1, Gunze has been an innovator in the field of manufacturing technologies, with a focus on automation and digital solutions.
In stage2, we will continue to advance and strengthen these technologies, rolling them out throughout the Company.
In automation, we have combined elemental technologies, such as image processing, sensing, and handling technologies, to automate processes that previously depended heavily on people.
In stage1, we successfully built an automated bonding-sewing line for apparel products by integrating handling technologies to pick up delicate fabric sheets one at a time, sensing technologies to transport and place them precisely, and image-processing technologies to apply adhesives accurately.
In stage2, we will extend these technologies to the highly complex sewing processes in the apparel business and the manufacturing of bioabsorbable medical products in the medical business.
Full-scale operations are scheduled to begin in the second half of FY2025.
We will also promote the automation of inspection processes, which still rely significantly on skilled human visual inspection procedures, across all of our business units.
With the future labor shortage in mind, we are working to enhance accuracy, improve speed, and reduce workload using image processing and automated conveyance technologies.

Strengthening the Digital Strategy In parallel, we are strengthening our digital strategy.
In stage1, we introduced digital tools in our sales and back-office functions to redesign workflows.
This included the visualization of management data using a management dashboard, streamlining routine tasks with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and managing and visualizing KPIs to reduce inventory.
These efforts have advanced efficiency and transformed the organization.
In stage2, we will use AI to further strengthen our digital strategy.
Companywide, we will introduce ChatGPT-based tools to share knowledge and support businesses while also building a knowledge system for maintenance operations using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology.
In production and supply chain management (SCM), we will use AI to optimize scheduling and monitor inventory data in real time, preventing stockouts and overstocking, and thereby reducing storage costs.
By continuing to innovate in the field of manufacturing technologies, we aim to realize sustainable and competitive manufacturing while delivering new value to society and our customers.

Automated bonding-sewing line for apparel products

Intellectual Property Development

To solidify the accumulated technologies that we regard as our intellectual capital, it is essential that we document tacit knowledge, such as the expertise and ideas of individuals, and manage it systematically as IP rights and expertise.
We believe that continuously rebuilding our IP portfolio while ensuring it stays aligned with our corporate and business strategies is essential to the achievement of sustainable growth and development.
To this end, we have established the IP Division as a head office function.
It is responsible for formulating and promoting IP initiatives in line with our corporate strategy.
In particular, we emphasize the establishment of a robust IP portfolio to reinforce the foundation of our business.
This involves analyzing our proprietary IP assets in priority business domains, together with trends in the market and our competition, and sharing these findings with each business division.
By integrating this information with various other data, we identify the technology areas to be reinforced and establish policies for each domain.
Building on this foundation, we are advancing initiatives through cross-divisional collaboration.
To bridge the IP initiatives with the R&D and business divisions, we appoint heads of development in each division as division patent officers (DPOs).
These DPOs closely collaborate with the IP Division to strengthen alignment with business strategies and accelerate the making of decisions and management related to intellectual property, including the development of IP and responses to violations of IP rights.

Expansion of Intellectual Property To encourage the creation of IP, we present the Da Vinci Award, an original corporate accolade, to the inventors of patents and innovations that significantly contribute to our business.
The award ceremony is held in a dialogue format, with the President personally listening to the inventors’ ideas and development stories.
It is positioned as an annual tradition that conveys our respect and appreciation for our engineers.
In recent years, the business divisions and the IP Division have strengthened their collaborations in the area of resource circulation technologies, plastic recycling in particular, to further expand our IP portfolio.
This growing body of IP is the vital foundation that enables the Gunze Group to actively contribute to a sustainable society, and its value will only continue to increase going forward.