Only after that did the YKK company start expanding to Canada and other countries all over the world. Today, YKK company has different facilities in 71 countries worldwide.
But, keep in mind that that encompasses every branch of the company — the manufacturing of store fronts, sunshades, windows etc. I mean I could, but it would bore both you and me to death. One of the main reasons why YKK is such a big name in the zipper game is the sheer abundance of the different kinds of zippers they manufacture. Coil zippers, metal zippers, custom sliders — you name it, they make it.
They manufacture zippers from various different materials in pretty much every color under the rainbow. And with so much variety of the shape of the pullers that it can make your head spin. By having so many different options in their catalogue, they are able to satisfy the needs of numerous different clients. YKK is also one of the few zipper companies that is able to manufacture an entirely waterproof zipper that will actually perform as well as you need them to.
SBS is still ahead in the vast Chinese market, but YKK is investing heavily in development of new technologies, which allows them to be ahead in the overall game. The reason why YKK manages to be ahead in the bigger picture is because of the other branches of the umbrella corporation. All of their research and development is in-house, which is why they are winning in the zipper wars.
With the influence of high-end brands only getting stronger in the past decades, zipper companies like YKK and SBS are investing conspicuous sums of money into developing technologies that will allow them to collaborate with renown designers. But, most of the big names like Balmain and Tom Ford are working with lesser known manufacturers, which are able to prioritize their needs — something a giant like YKK would not be able to do. If you've ever taken a close look at the zippers on your clothes, you've probably noticed the letters "YKK," in all capitals, on a lot of them.
They're on everything from jeans, to coats, to sleeping bags. By one estimate , the company makes half the zippers on Earth, which is more than 7 billion zippers each year. Yoshida didn't invent zippers. In fact, zippers were invented by an American, Whitcomb L. Judson, in the s. Because the customer will blame the maker of the whole garment even if the zipper was the part that failed. Danny Lewis is a multimedia journalist working in print, radio, and illustration.
YKK operates along similar lines to Michelin, the France-based tire manufacturer, closely guarding the secret of its manufacturing processes and making constant improvements. This is a situation completely at odds with one in which the same suppliers serve the same customers. In the latter case, the customers share the same intermediate consumption and machines, leaving no scope for differentiation with regard to these factors and hence no scope for comparative advantage.
The second insight we owe to Professor Marc J. Melitz of Harvard University. He developed an entry-exit model for firms operating in the same industry but with varying degrees of productivity. On the basis of this difference they fall into one of three categories: the most efficient serve the home market and export; the slightly less efficient ones only cater for the home market; the least efficient go out of business. But the ranking shifts according to hindrances to international trade, notably transport and information costs, and import tariffs.
When the effect of such obstacles declines, pushed down by technical progress or the opening of borders, new firms will export, whereas a further cohort of poor performers will go to the wall, their sales on the home market captured by the remaining, more efficient firms.
Melitz demonstrates new gains from liberalizing trade: reallocation, in the same industry, of production by the least-efficient firms to their most efficient competitors. In other words, globalization, which enlarges the potential market, has the effect here of increasing average productivity in a given industrial sector. For example, the market share lost by Talon and taken up by YKK uses less labor and less capital to manufacture one meter of zipper.
Under equivalent competitive conditions this will benefit the consumer because the price will be lower. The same competitive regime prevails regardless of how open international trade may be. At equilibrium all the firms cover their average unit cost and none of them behave strategically. The firms go on operating as separate entities, as in a situation of perfect competition. Yet international trade generally encourages the emergence and consolidation of powerful firms with substantial market share, or in other words oligopolies which coalesce and gather strength.
So it changes the intensity and competition regime. The zipper business has gradually evolved from one dominated by national champions, each initially entrenched on their home ground then challenged by imports from the most enterprising of their foreign rivals, to a market in which a dominant multinational, YKK, coexists with a competitive fringe comprising several hundred, mainly Chinese companies.
There are now a dozen or so firms, all with three-letter names. One of their number, SBS, is listed on the Shenzen stock exchange and stands out for its size and ambition.
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