We manufactured

In 1964, we cooperated in the manufacture of the medals used in the Tokyo Olympic Games. The Olympic committee presented us with replicas of the silver and bronze medals.

Collaboration with Dr. Sueo Kawabata of the Faculty of Engineering at Kyoto University.

Dr. Sueo Kawabata of Kyoto University, who started the study of textile texture, enquired about the skilled craftmanship necessary to produce "a bending spacer" for physical property evaluation.
Around that time, there was a "file master craftsman" in Kato Tech who was recognized as the best in Kyoto.
We accepted Dr. Kawabata's request and successfully produced the spacer based on his image. Dr. Kawabata then made it possible to perform "accurate bending measurements" using this spacer.

Turning Point: Desire To Produce Testers That Can Evaluate Physical Properties

Collaboration with Dr. Kawabata continued and Kato Tech proceeded to "manufacture new products".
We directed the company's future towards a "knowledge intensive industry" and carried out a shift change to manufacture "small but value-added products".

The Birth of KES

In 1970, with an increasing need for objective texture evaluation technology, "The Hand Evaluation and Standardization Committee (HESC)" was set up in The Textile Machinery Society of Japan. Its purpose was the "standardization of the hand evaluation of fabrics" and the "analysis of hand judgement which had been done by the experts in the factories in Japan".

At that time, Dr. Kawabata and Dr. Masako Niwa of Nara Women's University played a central role in this committee. Skilled engineers from Japan's leading textile companies and university researchers were members of this committee. The committee took three years to evaluate approx. 500 different types of fabrics and defined "primary hand expressions" and "total hand value", and successfully developed an " objective evaluation method for fabric texture".
In this study, it was found that the texture evaluation was based on the initial mechanical properties in the micro-load range, and the "texture measurement technology, KES (KAWABATA EVALUATION SYSTEM)" was developed to measure the mechanical properties of fabrics.

The KES measurement conditions do not conform to JIS and ISO standards, however they are recognized and used worldwide by many skilled technicians and researchers in universities and companies.

*Reference:
Sueo Kawabata, "The Standardization and Analysis of Hand Evaluation (2nd Edition), The Hand Evaluation and Standardization Committee", Osaka, Japan, 1980