SMART DESIGN

44 | L&L
(L-R) Roger Pellow, MD, labels and packaging group, Tarsus,
Mitsuo Komiyama, MSP, and Akio Nemoto, general manager, Lintec
Addressing Asia
LABEL CONVERTERS are looking to expand operations overseas and seek new markets in Asia, as Roger
Pellow discovered meeting MSP owner Mitsuo Komiyama
Mitsuo Komiyama and his wife set
up label converter MSP in Japan
over 30 years ago. It was a partner
of local printing press and materials
manufacturer Lintec for most of this
time, which was a great support for the
company in the early days.
MSP started out printing plain labels
and now specializes in the industrial and
consumer electronics markets, which
account for 70 percent of the company’s
label printing business, as well as
track and trace label systems. Half of
the company’s turnover comes from a
specialist die-cutting operation, which
uses custom made machinery, Koto solid
dies and Tsukatni flexible dies.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
In addition to three plants in Japan
– the oldest is located in Uenohara
and has been there since 1998 – MSP
moved into the Philippines in 2008 and
expanded into Thailand in 2009. It has
115 employees globally, with 80 of these
based in Japan.
Komiyama explains, ‘Margins in Japan
are very tight due to the high cost of
the labor and deflationary economics,
LABELS&LABELING
which has made it difficult to put through
price increases in the last 10 years. We
expanded into the Philippines because
labor cost there is one tenth of the cost
in Japan, as well as allowing us to open
new markets.’
Komiyama’s son, Satoshi, is also
involved in the business as head of sales.
He believes the biggest challenge is the
Japanese economy – the Great East
Japan Earthquake caused the Japanese
label market to decrease by one to two
percent in early 2011 but it is expected to
recover by two percent in 2012. Despite
this, the company has continued to
grow at seven percent per annum and
reports an annual turnover of three billion
Japanese yen, in comparison to the
average Japanese label printer’s turnover
of one billion yen.
According to Komiyama, the overall
market in Japan is flat and some label
printers are going out of business.
Large companies are getting bigger and
acquiring others whilst small businesses
are surviving in niche markets. ‘It is
the middle companies that are being
squeezed out.’
As key customers, such as Toshiba,
move out of Japan, MSP is focusing
on addressing overseas markets and
exports 20 percent of business into
Asia-Pacific. Komiyama adds that in
Thailand the company produces high
volume, low margin work like price-weigh
labels.
In line with the electronic companies it
serves, MSP has a strict ‘no shoe’ policy
within its plants. Another unusual quirk
is the inspection method. After normal
inspection, a final check is carried out
manually in a special climate controlled
inspection room.
Most materials are supplied by Lintec
and an inventory of just one week is kept.
MSP has been paying to recycle all its
waste for the past five years, sending
matrix waste to a recycling company
where it is turned into fuel pellets.
MSP moved into digital printing with
an HP Indigo ws4500 two years ago.
However, Komiyama says: ‘We are still
learning how to make good money out of
it’. The average digital print run is 5,000
labels compared to an average print run
of 30,000 labels on the company’s Lintec
and Sanjo letterpress machines and
Mark Andy 22000 10-inch flexo press.