Why do We always Mention YKK Zipper?

Most zippers in the world are produced by a company called YKK. YKK is a Japanese company. Its products are sold in 71 countries around the world. As the originator of the zipper industry, YKK represents the industry standard. At present, YKK is still the largest market share owner in the zipper and button industry.

Because of the precise Japanese process, raw materials, and management methods, YKK's price is about 10 times that of other brands of zippers. YKK zipper has a high proportion of copper, and its smoothness and durability are higher than those of other brands. In particular, the smoothness of the Y-shaped teeth unique to the metal zipper is very good. Some high-end foreign brands are designated to use YKK.

The rise of the "zipper king"

In 1928, Tadao Yoshida was 20 years old. He left his hometown of Heibu Town, Fuji County, with the living expenses of 70 yen given by his brother, and went to Tokyo alone to make a breakthrough.

At that time, Chinese ceramics sold well in Japan. Yoshida started his career in a small ceramic shop opened by a friend. Later, Yoshida was sent to Shanghai to purchase ceramics. In the 1930s, Shanghai Beach nurtured numerous domestic business giants as well as foreign visitors. Here, Yoshida's "business model" gradually took shape from zero to one, which has become a magic weapon for him to win in the future.

After the outbreak of the Japanese war of aggression against China. Yoshida returned to Japan to help his friends save the ceramic shop that was on the verge of bankruptcy, but he failed to escape the fate of bankruptcy. When cleaning up the goods left in the shop, Yoshida accidentally found a large number of zippers entrusted by others for sale. Many of these zippers have been rusted and damaged due to rough production and poor quality. However, these zippers, which are regarded as tattered by others, have become the "treasure" in Yoshida's eyes. He borrowed money to buy these zippers and started his business.

In January 1934, Yoshida set up a company called Sans Company, which specializes in the production and sales of zippers, with only two employees. So far, Yoshida has shouldered a heavy burden - a debt of 2070 yen, and his later life has been pinned on a small zipper.

At that time, the development of zippers in Japan was not smooth. The way of zipper production in Japan is very primitive. It is completely assembled manually. The zipper is cut, pulled, and taped one tooth at a time, which makes the failure rate high. It is common for customers to return goods and store inventories to pile up.

To solve this problem, Yoshida first went to Osaka Zipper Factory to take the opportunity of ordering and understand the manufacturing process of zippers. When I came back, I concentrated on studying ways to improve. He developed some repair tools to repair the returned zippers one by one. He recorded his experience and illustrated it with charts. What made him more confident was that almost no one returned the zippers he had repaired and sold.

In the zipper processing factory on the third floor of SanS Company, the first batch of returned zippers piled up like a mountain were all sold as SanS brand zippers after being repaired by Yoshida and two employees. The SanS brand zipper sold to customers is sturdy and durable, and can even withstand the impact of a hammer. In addition, it is smooth and easy to pull, making a crisp and soft sound like tearing cloth along the grain. Its market is becoming more and more smooth. Many dealers in Tokyo mainly buy goods from SanS, and are entitled "Golden Hammer Zipper".

Yoshida's zipper sales have tripled every year, and Sans Company has also started to produce some parts of zippers. The number of employees in the company has increased from 3 to 26, and the sales network is also growing. Yoshida paid off all the debts and took back the IOU with tears in his eyes.

In 1938, after several expansions, the number of employees of Sans Company increased to more than 100, and the original stores were not enough. Yoshida purchased 85 square meters of land (the square was originally the name of the Japanese area unit, and one square meter is equal to 3.3057 square meters.) A new factory has been built. SanS Company was also renamed Yoshida Industrial Company.

In that year, Japan implemented the wartime economic system. In addition to the production of guns, the domestic business community was prohibited from using "copper", while the zipper was mainly made of copper. After repeated experiments, he decided to use aluminum as a substitute. As a result, Yoshida became the first ancestor in the world to replace copper zippers with aluminum. Since then, he has also developed aluminum zippers with strong hardness and lightweight.

Yoshida is not satisfied with the domestic market. He is also actively expanding the markets in the United States, Mexico, and South America. Until the outbreak of the Pacific War.

To rise from a desperate situation

On March 10, 1945, an American air strike destroyed Yoshida's zipper factory in Tokyo. In the face of the ruins, Yoshida's ambition did not fall. He saw that after Japan's defeat, the economy was facing depression and the goods were seriously insufficient. He took this opportunity to use his own experience and technology in running a factory, recruit workers, raise funds and equipment, and soon produced a large number of zippers. At this time, he began to use the trademark "YKK", which laid the foundation for the world-famous zipper kingdom.

Yoshida did not expect that when the enterprise embarked on a new track, a small incident later would have a profound impact on the development of "YKK".

One afternoon, an American came to Yoshida's office and asked to see their zipper of Yoshida. Yoshida took out the best zipper of the company and quoted a price of 9 cents. The Americans were silent for a moment and took out a zipper they carried with them. After Yoshida tried it out, they found that its performance and design were far better than "YKK", and its price was even more astounding: 7 cents and 40 zippers!

This matter had a great impact on Yoshida. When recalling the situation at that time, he said: "We simply had no room for negotiation. I was sweating all over." Despite the continuous development of the enterprise, the zipper technology in Japan is still at a backward stage. Yoshida knew that if American products entered the Japanese market, the whole Japanese zipper industry would collapse.

An American chain tooth machine can be imported for 30000 to 30000 dollars, which can't be borne by a small enterprise alone. Yoshida proposed that the industry pays for the imported machine together to establish a joint operating company, but no one responded. Later, Yoshida gritted its teeth and spent 12 million yen to import four fully automatic tooth chaining machines from the United States, while the principal of Yoshida was only 5 million yen at that time.

Yoshida's money was not wasted. The machine runs at a high speed and has excellent performance, which attracts the whole factory staff. However, Yoshida did not stop there. He also did one thing - invited the director of Hitachi Seiki, Qing Sanlang, to discuss and decided to develop 100 better machines in three years and deliver them in batches.

Later, among the 100 new high-speed chain machines, the 33-type zipper machine has 4000 revolutions per minute, and the production capacity of 12 minutes is equivalent to the workload of 8 hours a day for the old model.

At the same time, Yoshida once again turned his attention to foreign countries and looked forward to opening up his own "zipper kingdom" in Xinjiang again. With the escalating trade war between Japan and Western Europe and North America, Yoshida foresaw that Western Europe and North America would inevitably restrict the import of Japanese goods by raising tariffs. To survive in the cracks, he set the strategy of developing overseas businesses by using local cheap labor, building factories overseas, and selling goods locally.

The plate is too big, so we have to work hard on workmanship. In many factories of "YKK", there is not a single machine with a service life of more than 3 years. The company produces tens of thousands of machines every year for replacement in subordinate factories.

"Although the zipper production machine has a long service life, it can only play its best role in the past few years, so it should be constantly updated." In fact, since 1953, "YKK" has been implementing the strategy of equipment self manufacture. Except for special circumstances, 100% of the zipper and aluminum profile manufacturing equipment of the company is manufactured by YKK's black part factory. In the factory, half of the people work in the technical research department and the equipment department that manufactures the company's equipment.

In 1958, Tadao Yoshida, 50, finally got his wish. This year's zipper output fulfilled the ambition of annual zipper length around the world.

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