Yen10 Billion Expansion Of Flagship Komori Factory

The latest phase of expansion of Komori's Tsukuba factory in Tsukuba City (Japan) will start in September when construction begins.

Komori said that it will be investing Yen10 billion in the project, which is scheduled for completion in December 2009.

The development will see the Tsukuba Plant doubled in size to become the world's largest press manufacturing facility.

Phase three of development will add a further 27,000 square metres, resulting in a 60,000 square metre site integrating manufacturing, assembly, testing, research and development, demonstration and training.

The manufacture of web offset and banknote presses, previously produced by Komori's Sekiyado Plant, will be moved to Tsukuba where Komori said it will centralise production of all its large format presses on the single site.

As a result, manufacturing will be streamlined to further reduce lead times and cut production costs of the company's fastest selling presses.

Meanwhile Sekiyado will focus on the manufacture of component parts.

Assembly of the Lithrone S29 and smaller format presses will remain at the Yamagata Plant.

The Tsukuba plant opened for full production in 2005 to respond to sales of Komori's B1 Lithrone S40 sheetfed series.

The company added that a further investment of Yen1.5 billion is being made its new international Graphic Technology Centre at Tsukuba, which will provide demonstration and training facilities across Komori's full range of presses.

Over the next few years, regional Komori Technical Service Centres will be established around the world, starting in Prague (Czech Republic) and in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) later this year.

Komori's latest developments follow a nine per cent rise in net sale during the last year from Yen142 billion to Yen155 billion.

The company said that growth was similar to year-on-year growth over the last five years, during which time sales turnover has grown by almost 65 per cent.

The company added that it has also experienced international expansion with exports contributing 73 per cent of total turnover, compared to 66 per cent the previous year.

America, especially Latin and South America, continues to be an important market for the company, whilst European sales have increased from 24 per cent to 33 per cent of total business.

Other regions have also seen growth - rising from 18 per cent of total sales in 2007 to 34 per cent in 2008 - with India, South Korea, ASEAN and Oceana particularly strong, added the company.

Yoshiharu Komori, president and chief executive officer of Komori Corporation, said: "We are experiencing continued strong growth in market share worldwide, particularly outside Japan, which is driving our investment to meet increase in demand for our sheetfed and web offset presses in the future.

Response to the quality and flexibility of our new presses that fulfil the market's need for automation, flexible configurations, quality and return on investment has been phenomenal.

Our aim is to achieve a market share of 30 per cent within five years." He added that sales of all Komori presses have been strong with a particular increase in web offset press shipments where the trend is towards 32-page formats.

Companies often complement their 16-page web presses with 32-page Komori web machines and the ability to choose from a range of cut-off options has proved popular.

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