Nippon Mayer: Innovation feels at home

The modern architecture of the Development Centre is sending out the message – “Innovation is at home here”.

With its new Development Centre, NIPPON MAYER has become the first port of call for the production of warp-knitted spacer textiles.

They make car seats feel comfortable and provide padding, bring a touch of style and comfort to sports shoes, and make mattress assemblies breathable and comfortable – warp-knitted spacer textiles are now an indispensable feature of technical and semi-technical applications.

These functional, 3D warp-knitted textiles are produced on double-bar raschel machines. Their characteristics can be varied extensively, so that they offer an enormous business potential. The goal of KARL MAYER’s new Centre of Excellence for double-bar raschel machines is to exploit this potential. This high-tech hotspot, which focuses on warp-knitted spacer textiles, was set up in KARL MAYER’s Japanese subsidiary, NIPPON MAYER, in Fukui, which was reorganised and modernised extensively for this purpose. The work on this new facility was concluded in September 2016.

The office buildings were renovated first of all, followed by the assembly hall in 2015. A model Development Centre was also finished in July 2016.

Plenty of scope for innovation: With the investment in NIPPON MAYER, KARL MAYER’s Japanese site in Fukui became the Centre of Excellence for the development, construction and technical support of double-bar raschel machines. Special machines and applications – for example, super-firm nets and medical textiles – and the provision of technical support to high-level customers, also became part of the company’s remit.

To do all this, the new ‘command centre’ for warp-knitted spacer textiles relies on a workforce of 62 people, and the services provided by the entire KARL MAYER Group, i.e., its vast experience and extensive facilities for adding value. The site in Fukui also has its own Development Centre. The building is located on the site of an existing hall complex and was opened in July 2016. It covers an area of 63 x 31 m. There is room in these modern premises for developing textiles and for demonstrating machines, particularly to interested companies in the shoe and clothing industries. There is also space for the KARL MAYER Academy training courses, and a small but excellent specialist production centre. NIPPON MAYER can, therefore, provide everything that makffective development and production site with specialist credentials.