Festive opening ceremony of rubber mixing facility for Shibata Industrial

On August 29, 2018 the Shibata Industrial Management Board celebrated the inauguration of the Group’s cutting edge, fully owned mixing plant for rubber compounds and fender production in Malaysia with a group of invited guests. The investment of USD 7 Million in predominantly Japanese-made rubber mixing equipment for the new factory is finally in operation after months of detailed planning.

The obligatory factory visit was followed by the Japanese traditional ceremony “Kagami Biraki” which is a Sake Barrel Ceremony meaning ‘Good luck’ in Japan, after which Mr. Atsuki Shibata (President of Shibata Group) ceremonially opened the new factory. The day ended with lunch and many networking possibilities.


The second part of the opening ceremony took part at the next day by a lunch invitation for over 130 guests including suppliers, customers and business partners. The many guests used the opportunity to visit the factory and spent the day with networking and relationship building.

“The steep growth in demand for SFT’s high quality rubber fenders was the catalyst for this far-reaching investment decision, which will further strengthen our global position as a leading fender manufacturer,” explains Hiroto Suzuki, Director at Shibata Industrial in Japan and Managing Director of the ShibataFenderTeam office in Malaysia.
The opening of two new ShibataFenderTeam offices in the past two years (Malaysia, 2016 and Spain, 2017) has accelerated the company’s growth and demand for additional production resources.

Situated in Klang, Malaysia, the factory building is a new three storey complex which hosts the mixing facilities, office space, a thermal insulation room, and additional fender production. ShibataFenderTeam will be the first fender manufacturer to use the latest-generation compound mixers and associated technology. After almost a decade of very close cooperation with Shibata Industrial the new factory is an important milestone and a clear sign of SFT’s commitment to both the production location and the market.

Adjacent to the mixing equipment the fully equipped laboratory is located. Information from the production floor is swiftly relayed to the R&D and vice versa. This will further extend and strengthen the group’s R&D capabilities. Rubber compounds, and especially their production, are critical to ShibataFenderTeam’s ethos of highest quality fender manufacturing. With its recently published white paper about rubber compounding, SFT further emphasizes their expertise in this field. They wish to advocate more transparency in fender production in order to ensure quality standards that are driven by a commitment to high-performance products and a clear sense of responsibility.