Shibaura Machine:
The origin of manufacturing Story 3
Business expansion
from our foundation
in machine tools.
As the name suggests, our predecessor,
Shibaura Machine Tool Co., was founded
for the main purpose of manufacturing large machine tools in 1938.
However, as times changed, additional growth could
no longer be expected only from the existing market.
We therefore took our technologies and engineering expertise developed
in manufacturing large machine tools, and explored ways to diversify our business.
We first created three new businesses in the fields of textiles, printing,
and die casting.
These businesses were derived from machine tools based on the trends of the times and our sense of market needs.
In the textile business for instance, leading textile manufacturers were riding a wave of business expansion after introducing innovative new technologies,
and we succeeded in getting their business with our silk reeling machines.
Our textile business grew to a point where it reached 70% of our total business.
In 1949, Shibaura Machine Works became an independent company with our Numazu Plant as its parent organization.
At this time, we had already removed machine tools from our thinking internally and had expanded our vision to encompass all machine markets.
The name Shibaura is synonymous with large machine tools.
Beyond our reputation, we will use the basic technologies
which go into manufacturing large machine tools to meet needs in all directions.
This is also a part of Shibaura’s spirit of manufacturing.
