At present in the Japanese textile industry, there are many firms with a fixed division of labor.

Even in efforts towards unique business goals, there has been a conspicuous delay in the introduction of tactical project management which expresses a sequence of operations that are implemented while a balance is maintained between 1) scale, scope, quality, 2) time, 3) people, money, objects.

Wal-Mart's management operations are representative of the classic form of tactical project management.

If the vague structure currently used in Japan were adjusted to fit the three factors of tactical project management, while the quality achieved may be satisfactory, any speeding up of manufacturing time would result in higher costs. The total of labor cost + variable cost would also increase, reflecting that Super QR is not a capability that can be acquired easily.

Fig 1 The three basic factors of a project

However, not engaging in Super QR, will mean defeat in the face of international competitiveness brought about by the arrival of a global society. With the incorporation of IT, the system shown in fig. 1 must be quickly established. If this task is neglected, there is the danger that the Japanese textile industry will flounder.

But will all management in the Japanese textile industry flounder?

Will all large-scale retailers operating in the Japanese market link up with foreign textile firms, set up SCM, and form tactical project management (incorporating IT)? It would surely be wrong to assume that all firms will be able to achieve this.

The contents of the Hudson report gives hope to Japan

If faced with a crisis, the Japanese must have the ability to adopt a new structure. This is the assertion of the US's Hudson Institute. The Hudson Institute, headed by Herbert London, compiled a report that gives hope to the Japanese. A general overview was introduced in interviews with several researchers of the Hudson Research Institute conducted by Y. Hidaka, an executive officer of a US think-tank, broadcast recently on commercial television. The contents of the report are quite well known, so will not be repeated here, but all the researchers of the Hudson Institute asserted that Japan will make a resurgence.

The keywords in this were said to be robotics, bioscience, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and environmental engineering.

the Textile Technology Center, the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Research Institute has expanded its research into the conversion between light-source colors and object colors in color CRT displays used in the textile industry and also its research connecting this to CCM, and the integrated result of this is more or less complete. This achievement can be said to have taken its cue from bio-robotic functions.

SCM becomes bioscientific: A pillar of the e-marketplace

In order to establish SCM that reaches into the planning, production and retailing of textile products, a connection between eB-to-B (electronic business to business transactions) and eB-to-C (electronic business to consumer transactions) is necessary.

If this connection is not established, throughput cannot be achieved. Throughput is the amount of non-defective production volume within a certain total time, and so as fig. 2 shows, the throughput improves as the amount of lost time decreases.

Fig 2 Reducing lead time - From T. Sakurai, Kigyo kankyo no henka to kanrikaikei, (The Transformation of the Enterprise Environment and Managerial Accounting)

The reduction of lost time to zero is ideal, but in SCM, the bare structure for attaining a substantial reduction of lost time is the real goal, and in this, software and hardware in the spirit of SCM are necessary.

When these two combine, SCM can be accomplished and as a result, Super QR can be achieved. The establishment of routes from the planning of a textile product through to its delivery to the consumer through SCM is the swift accomplishment of the route of consumertextile product planningproductiondelivery to consumer. The convergence of all the relevant branches is the goal.

Basically, without SCM that incorporates CRM (customer relationship management, that is, customer accommodation) functions, throughput cannot be attained. This is the unanimous verdict of CRM researchers.

For example, upon announcing a desire to eat fillet steak, if there is a rapid response of "OK, here you are," the consumer will be satisfied. This is CRM-type SCM.

If the steak is late or tastes bad, the customer will leave. Bringing this all together with a large range of products is Wal-Mart.

The same thing is required in the manufacture of textile products, and in the Japanese domestic market, this had best be attained soon.

For example, if, at a dyeing factory, a long time is required for matching in the operations that decide the color and the style of a fabric or in completing adjustments and production, the customer will leave. Furthermore, if textile product planning takes a long time, labor costs rise and the non-defective production volume in a certain total time will decline, and so the throughput will decrease.

If the cost incurred by suppliers rises, there will undoubtedly be a loss of international competitiveness.

Matching fabric colors with a computer: Towards the possibility of exchange with approximations of real color

As a solution to these difficulties, the the Textile Technology Center, the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Research Institute has more or less completed the formation of a basic structure for the development process aimed at the conversion between light-source colors and fabrics' object colors, and also at a shift towards CCM. The advantage of this is that it allows the two-way conversion between the fabric colors as displayed on a CRT screen and the actual colors as dyed.

This color information can be linked to CCM (computer color matching) and put into a color calculation system.

Furthermore, color measurement values for different types of fibers can be shown on a computer monitor, and the different effects that result from different combinations of colors and materials can also be rendered.

Until now, many of those involved in the planning of products for apparel enterprises have given color or style samples on paper or on other media to dyeing factories. Dyeing factories had to measure these samples with CCM, and seek to calculate a dye recipe which matched the color sample with CCM, or alternatively conduct manual mixing experiments in order to supply strike off samples to the apparel manufacturer.

Until now, if adjustment was necessary, it involved fresh attempts at the creation of color samples. This is difficult in Super QR. However, due to the efforts of the Textile Technology Center, the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Research Institute to get around this problem, it is now possible to conduct matching of colors by way of colors seen by both the purchaser and the supplier on a computer's CRT screen.

With this system, the quick adjustment of color is now possible. Just by what mechanism the utilization of this is made possible in B-to-B was explained as follows by a representative of the Textile Technology Center, the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Research Institute.

The light-source color of a CRT color display is converted to its corresponding spectral reflectance factor from which a dye recipe can be derived, the reverse conversion also being possible.

	The effect of different combinations of colors and fabrics can be rendered on a CRT screen.
	Software for dyeing that can display the actual color and the dye recipe has also been developed.
	Rendering of the approximately 6000 colors of Kyoto's traditional colors and SCOTDIC's colors
	Colors can be displayed with their code numbers.

Because the rendering of colors on a CRT computer monitor is with RGB, which expresses light-source color, the conversion is possible through the sequence RGBLabXYZCCM calculation (dye's basic data)dye recipe. This means that colors displayed on a CRT screen can now be re-created on fabric. This is all integrated as shown below.

1. CCM calculations are introduced into the system.

2. Off-line dealings are shifted online and network response is made possible.

3. CRT-based color calibration and the preservation of colors (alteration normally occurs on the CRT screen over time) are introduced and there is an ongoing expansion of capabilities.

Kyoto Municipal Textile Research Institute provides software at low-cost

The basic software utilizes LINUX (freesoft), the DB (database) software utilizes PostgreSQL (freesoft), a rival of Oracle, and standard colors were put into formulas that combined them with achromatic colors, and then, in extension of this, into formulas that were capable of rendering any colors.

The rendering of colors also allows combinations with fabrics (the effect of any combination can be displayed), and CRT correction is achieved through a correction procedure using a CRT brightness sensor.

In viewing the screen, if E is large, adjustments are simple

Another advantage is that dye recipes can be recorded on a CRT color display. If, in viewing the rendering of color on the screen, E (overall color difference) is large or small, it can be adjusted to the optimum level while the data for the dye recipe is visible. Until now it has been possible to send data concerning color, design and stitching by computer, but data communication concerning color using the real color principle and exchange of data regarding the color's dye recipe have not been possible on the information superhighway. Once these are possible, the power of SCM will rise to a new level. It is this that has been the goal of the research conducted by the Textile Technology Center, the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Research Institute.

The result is that software for business operations can now be supplied to users at low cost.

This research is continuing, and the ramifications in the advance towards a shift to eB-to-B are huge. Lectra, the French textile planning and design agency, has partnered with Datacolor to realize the same goal as that of the Textile Technology Center, the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Research Institute. Britain's AVA is also working towards the same goal, and in Japan there is Kurabo.

Activity in accordance with the concept of throughput is continuing to increase globally. In China, Huafang's Technology Development Center is conducting "practical research concerning color matching and a drip material system with computers." If this research continues, one can expect that it will broaden to contain the visual adjustment of colors on a computer screen.