Senken Newspaper has highlighted TENTAC's strengths in RFID production lines.
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Although IC tag supply is unstable worldwide…
TENTAC expands its sales by taking advantage of its domestic plant.
The growing demand for IC tags is driven by the growth of fashion e-commerce.
However, due to the global semiconductor shortage, the supply-demand balance has been disrupted, IC chips and hardware have become expensive and difficult to obtain, causing some apparel companies to revert to conventional tags.
In this context, TENTAC, the top player in domestic IC tags, has an idea to expand its IC tag business, including beyond apparel, leveraging its stable supply of inlays (components that join
IC chips and antennas) and established production capabilities both domestically and internationally. (Yuki Fujikawa)
Kazo Plant that is capable of handling mass production to small and medium-sized lots
The rise in demand is a result of the proliferation of e-commerce and the expansion of SKUs (stock keeping units) into categories such as miscellaneous goods, because this has made inventory management, warehousing, packaging, shipping operations, and shelf inspections in stores more complex.
TENTAC procures inlays at nearly bottom prices, thanks to economies of scale and keeps the costs of the tags themselves under control.
This year the company established a RFID Business Division to enhance its expertise and better support client companies.
"While the apparel industry tends to be cautious about investments, many companies are considering adoption as they approach the end of the fiscal year."
(Wataru Onitsuka Director and General Manager, RFID Business Headquarters)
On the other hand, inquiries from non-apparel sectors, such as cosmetics and subscription service providers have notably increased, leading TENTAC to pursue market expansion beyond apparel.
Production is centered on overseas bases in China, Thailand and Vietnam, with a combined annual production capacity of 1.5 billion sheets.
The Kazo Plant (Kazo City, Saitama Prefecture), which is positioned as the mother plant of the global bases will play an increasing role.
In addition to responding to an increase in orders from other industries, the company is gradually returning to domestic production of apparel and is on track to reach an annual production capacity of 100 million sheets.
It is rare for a domestic factory to be able to produce in the 100-million-unit range and the company is considering further expansion of its production capacity.
Large-scale verification machines that simulate actual usage scenarios are also available.
In-house developed facilities will also be enhanced.
Established in 2014, the Kazo Plant has established an integrated production line for IC tag printing, inlay interlacing, printing, encoding and verification.
With the continuous enhancement of facilities, the factory is able to meet a wide range of requests, from mass production to small and medium-sized lots and from rolls of paper tags to labels and seals.
The know-how and facilities developed here have been horizontally deployed to each base, by issuing instructions to modify the colors to be printed on the tags, it is now possible to supply IC tags of the same quality from anywhere.
In addition to tag and label processing machines capable of producing 150,000 tags and labels per day, the company has also introduced installed large equipment such as communication performance measuring machines.
The communication performance measuring machine can measure and evaluate the magnetic field strength of inlays, communication distance, etc., and has been well received by customers for its ability to perform verifications that simulate actual usage scenarios, such as whether products can be read when they are stacked on cardboard.
The company also has a wide variety of original machines developed in-house, including high-speed encoding machines, printing/encoding verification machines, barcode/encoding verification machines and manual verification machines.
