Apparel Online India Magazine July 2nd Issue 2018 | Page 26

ADVERTORIAL
Ever Onward
1955 1964 1978 1981
Young Masahiro Shima,
age17 Fully automated glove
knitting machine SNC SDS1000
Throughout our history, we have cultivated
our corporate spirit of ‘if it can't be found
anywhere, let's create it’.
With the aim of meeting the challenge of an
automated glove knitting machine, Masahiro
Shima established SHIMA SEIKI MFG., LTD.
in 1962 and successfully developed a
fully automated glove knitting machine
in 1964. The company later made inroads
into the flat knitting machine business,
which has today become our core business.
Under our management principle of ‘Ever
Onward-Limitless Progress’, we continue our
unwavering efforts to embrace the unknown
and take on new challenge towards the
innovation and development of new
technologies.
Starting Line
In 1964, the third year of the inception of
the company, Masahiro Shima was working
around the clock to develop a glove
knitting machine but was running out of
development funds and had debts of no less
than 60 million yen. On December 24, 1964,
the day before the maturity of a 600,000-yen
note, he was on the verge of bankruptcy with
no prospects for financing. However, fate had
other things in store, and on the evening of
the same day, a miracle happened... A man,
who was a total stranger, appeared and
handed him some cash to honour the note.
The man had learnt about Shima’s desperate
situation from an enterprise management
consultant in Wakayama Prefecture and
decided to help the young entrepreneur who
was a stranger to him.
For one week from that day, Shima, who
had just barely escaped ‘bankruptcy’,
worked day and night on the development
of the machine and finally completed the
world's first fully automated glove knitting
machine on New Year’s eve. Early in the
New Year, Masahiro Shima held exhibitions
and obtained orders for about 600 units,
which marked the company’s start as a
fully automated glove knitting machine
manufacturer.
Turning Point
In 1974, because of the oil crisis that hit the
Japanese economy in the previous year, our
company's financial condition deteriorated.
The company was at crossroads because
some financial institutions advised the
company to reduce its workforce. Thinking
about the situation for continuous three days
and three nights, Masahiro Shima refused
to take the advice, and decided to go in the
opposite direction, that is, to introduce the
NC machine tool.
Believing that a significant change would
take place in knit production – from mass
production to high-mix, low-volume
production in the coming years, Masahiro
Shima decided to introduce NC machine
26 Apparel Online India | JULY 16-31, 2018 | www.apparelresources.com
tools to develop a computerized flat
knitting machine. This decision to introduce
the cutting-edge machine tool led to
in-house production of high-precision parts
and the recruitment and development
of employees who could operate the
machine tool. It was Shima's brave decision
made in the face of adversity that laid
the groundwork for the company's future
business development.
Computer Graphics
In order to give shape to consumer demand
for a variety of fashion styles, Shima Seiki
thought it indispensable to provide a
design tool that worked in conjunction
with flat knitting machines and set off on
in-house development of a design system.
In 1979, two years before the SDS-1000
was developed, the company obtained
information that NASA, which had launched
the unmanned spacecraft Voyager, was
going to sell three graphics boards that were
used to create CG animation of Saturn, and
thus acquired one of them for 15 million yen.
This was the beginning of a new journey.
Shima Seiki began marketing the SDS-
1000, which was developed when even
the term ‘Computer Graphics’ (CG) was not
widely known, in earnest. Shima Seiki's CG
technology, later earned a high reputation
as a design tool in the television and other
industries.