Nippon Seisen of stainless steel wire manufacturer is going to double the production capacity of Hirakata Plant responding to the rapid increase in orders for semiconductor gas filters since October 2016.

According to Nippon Seisen, the demand for semiconductor gas filters grew rapidly from the end of 2016 and in the subsequent year of 2017 the production volume became 1.5 times more than usual for which the company increased workers to maintain a 24-hour operation. Considering the difficulty in the current production capacity to cope with the ever-increasing demand, the company started to renew Hirakata Plant on a large scale last year. As for the production line of gas filters, a new sintering furnace was introduced in March of this year and a clean room will be added in future.

The test operation will continue in the new production facility until the end of June, and it is planned that the new production capacity will be shifted to the line in July or so. The current output in a full operation will be risen to 1.5 times more. The increased capacity will turn out to be over two times more than that in 2016. Based on the current production capacity of semiconductor gas filter, the business scale is estimated to be JPY3.6 billion on an annual basis, but with the renewed facility it will be increased by JPY2.0 billion on the assumption of full operation throughout the year.

Regarding company’s responses to the users from now on, they say, “We have inconvenienced our users with our disability to supply products, but we are going to enhance our production capacity. However, until the end of this year we have already been tied up with orders to capacity. We would appreciate it if you get in touch with us about our delivery condition in advance.”