Japan's gypsum board industry has faced challenging market conditions during the past two years with the global economic crisis slowing investment in the domestic property market and causing a downturn in demand for construction materials including plasterboard. Global Gypsum Magazine's special correspondent has been to visit Yoshino in Tokyo, and brings back this exclusive report on trends in Japan's gypsum industry.
Demand for gypsum board is expected to grow as Japan's economy recovers and investment in residential and commercial property begins to rise again. For the country's plasterboard manufacturers, the task ahead is to ensure high production efficiency in their production plants and to continue marketing efforts to increase the proportion of gypsum board used in property construction.
"The gypsum board market peaked here at 605.2 million square metres in 2006 but since the recent recession the market has declined," commented Yoshino Gypsum Co Ltd technical department manager, Kazuyuki Umehara, "Japan's economic situation is down now and there is little demand for construction projects. There are only a few new buildings. Housing project starts during the past four years have been declining. Japan's ageing society is a problem but mainly it is due to the economic conditions."
This is not the first time that Japan's gypsum board industry has faced tough times. Demand for plasterboard previously slumped in the late 1990s in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. After reaching a previous record high of 605 million square metres in 1995, plasterboard consumption fell during the next few years to 533 million square metres in 1999 due to the downturn affecting the construction industry.
Although plasterboard demand then rebounded to reach a new record high in 2006, Yoshino Gypsum does not expect the plasterboard market to experience another recovery on the same scale as in the early 2000s.
As a mature economy with an ageing population, Japan's potential market for construction materials is thought to have already peaked, limiting long term business prospects for gypsum board, cement and other material suppliers and producers.
However, as construction technology continues to evolve, plasterboard is expected to retain its position as an important building material due to its inherent advantages.
The current trend in Japan to replace old low-rise buildings with modern high-rise apartment and office blocks has increased the use of plasterboard in construction which is preferred for high quality developments for its sound insulation and light weight properties compared to reinforced concrete walls and ceilings. Due to advances in construction technology that ensure building foundations are secure in the event of an earthquake, Japanese property developers are keen to build taller high rise apartment blocks and office complexes.
Yoshino Gypsum estimates that about half of new homes in Japan are built of wood while new high rise apartments constructed using steel girders and reinforced concrete increasingly use plasterboard for the walls, ceilings and flooring.
"Housing demand is supported by replacement construction in urban areas. Tokyo is overpopulated, so people in Tokyo prefer multi-function new buildings rather than old buildings which are not equipped with modern facilities," Umehara explained. "These new places are more convenient to commute to in the centre of Tokyo. People like modern buildings to work in, for shopping, when they use banks and other services.
"Housing is becoming higher. The situation is different now that older houses are demolished and new taller apartments are built in their place. This trend is more so in Greater Tokyo and other urban areas.
"Apartment blocks over 30 stories tall are becoming common. Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, for example, has been redeveloped and the apartment blocks there are over 50 stories tall. The new Toranomon Residences in Tokyo also are over 50 stories tall. Most of these developments are private."
Construction trends
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the number of new housing units on which construction started in 2009 was 788,000, down 27.3% from 1.01 million housing units started the previous year.
In terms of building floor area, housing accounted for 60% of the total 115.5 million square metres of property floor area on which construction was started in 2009 while commercial and other property accounted for the remaining 40%.
The residential property market is of major importance to Japan's plasterboard industry as housing construction accounts for about 40% of Japan's gypsum board market while office development represents a further 30% of demand. The remaining 30% share of plasterboard consumed in Japan is used to build shopping centres, hospitals, factories and other buildings.
A-2000 system
Demand for plasterboard has grown with the increased use of the A-2000 partition wall construction system in Japan for high rise buildings over 30 stories tall. Basic design A-2000 walls are made with a 21mm thick inner board which serves as the inner base layer to which is glued and steel stapled a high density (1.2g/m3 density compared with 0.75g/m3 normal density) 9.5mm thick plasterboard as the outer wall surface.
A-2000 WI series walls have a one hour fire resistance rating and weigh much less than reinforced concrete walls. This reduces the total building weight and reduces the space needed for foundations and bearing piles due to thinner columns and beams being used.
In addition, research has shown that A-2000 WI series basic interior walls, though just 136mm thick, can provide sound insulation equivalent to 260mm thick reinforced concrete walls.
Japanese markets
Yoshino Gypsum is the larger of Japan's two plasterboard manufacturers. In the financial year ending March 31, 2010 (FY 2009), Yoshino produced about 350 million square metres of board, accounting for an 80% share of domestic gypsum board production.
Chiyoda Ute, Japan's other plasterboard manufacturer, supplied the remaining gypsum board. No plasterboard is imported due to high freight costs, though natural gypsum is imported to make gypsum board and other gypsum products.
Yoshino's plasterboard production and sales have fallen in line with the downturn in Japan's gypsum board market over the past three years. "We have an 80% share of the Japanese market. This share is stable and has not changed," Umehara said, "We are trying to increase our share. Price is one factor. We try to pitch our products at the architects and design offices and change the construction materials market by aiming upstream.
"We have a nationwide distribution system. We try to offer our strong interior construction system to customers as it is easy for them to buy from us. We have no major exports of gypsum products. In a few cases we have exported our Gyptone tiles to China."
Gypsum board output fell 15.4% to 440 million square metres in 2009, according to Japan Gypsum Board Industry Association, down from 520 million square metres the previous year.
In line with the fall in gypsum board output, plasterboard production consumed less raw gypsum last year, using 3.85Mt of raw gypsum in 2009, according to government figures, down 13.6% compared with 4.48Mt the previous year.
The proportion of domestic synthetic gypsum and reclaimed gypsum, mostly recovered from construction waste, used in plasterboard manufacturing has grown during the past four years while the proportion of imported gypsum continues to decline.
In 2009 some 2.6Mt representing 68% of gypsum used for plasterboard production was domestic byproduct gypsum, while 985,000t accounting for 26% of raw materials was imported natural gypsum. The remaining 255,000t representing 7% of materials used was obtained from other sources including recycled waste gypsum board from construction sites.
Domestic gypsum is mostly desulphurised synthetic gypsum, a by-product from coal-burning and oil-fired power stations. Imported gypsum prices are affected by sea freight transport costs. Most imports are from Australia and Thailand.
Yoshino Gypsum
Founded in 1901 as a gypsum mining company, Yoshino Gypsum opened Japan's first plasterboard factory in 1921 and launched the Tiger Board brand for its products, which remains in use today.
Forty years later, in 1961, Yoshino Gypsum achieved another first when the Yoshino Takasago plant in Hyogo Prefecture began manufacturing rimmed plasterboard on Japan's first fully automated gypsum board line.
Over the past four decades, following the introduction of automated production, Yoshino has concluded technical cooperation agreements with several of the world's leading gypsum product companies including Rigips Baustoffwerke of Germany in 1968, National Gypsum of the United States in 1977, CSR of Australia in 1979 and BPB plc of Britain in 1993.
Following the recent completion of the company's three year production restructuring programme in mid-2010, Yoshino Gypsum owns 16 gypsum board plants at locations across Japan with a combined production capacity of 486 million square metres of plasterboard a year.
Each of Yoshino Gypsum's plasterboard plants is equipped with one production line that operates 24 hours daily, seven days a week. Most, though not all, of the plants produce plasterboard ceiling tiles. Apart from locally made equipment, imported equipment from Europe has been installed in some plants including mixers, driers and calciners.
Yoshino's four largest plasterboard lines are capable of producing 60 million square metres a year each. The lines are designed to produce 6.6 million square metres per month each and are in operation for 10 months a year. Umehara pointed out that the lines are out of service while maintenance tasks are carried out during the two other months each year.
Factories equipped with the high capacity lines are the Chiba II, Chiba III, Mikawa and Kitakyushu plants.
For sales and marketing purposes, Yoshino divides Japan into different regions and supplies customers from local plants located within a 200km radius. All plasterboard is sold domestically.
In addition to the company's gypsum board plants, Yoshino owns four gypsum plaster factories with the combined capacity to produce 300,000t of plaster a year and four other plants with the combined annual capacity to make 50,000t of industrial plaster. Other facilities owned include two paper mills that make plasterboard liner paper.
Umehara noted that Yoshino Gypsum has built seven of its plasterboard factories itself and acquired the other plants through a series of mergers with other plasterboard manufacturers.
Chiba III
Umehara pointed out that the company's newest plant is the Chiba III factory which was opened near Tokyo's Narita International Airport in December 2007, soon after the domestic plasterboard market peaked. Since then Yoshino has chosen to close two smaller, older plants in Tokyo in 2008 and recently one in Toyama in June 2010 to reduce overall production costs.
Yoshino's showcase Chiba III plant is located on a 144,000 square metre site and is designed to produce 60 million square metres of gypsum board a year.
"We wanted to introduce highly efficient production with Chiba III," Umehara explained. "Our Chiba III plant is very big. Other plants the same size are our Chiba II, Mikawa and Kitakyushu plants. The 60,000 square metres capacity is optimum for this plant size.
"We have achieved 200 metres per minute production, the highest speed of all our plants. The standard board width for Chiba III is 910mm and the standard length 1820mm, so this is 3 by 6 feet board."
The company's Chiba III plant is equipped to produce a wide variety of plasterboard products except for ceiling tiles.
"Chiba III has many special features. For example, we have a catwalk so customers can visit and see inside the plant," Umehara said, "We have an indoor stacker silo for gypsum. Normally gypsum is outside but we store it inside because of maintenance reasons. Chiba III is close to the coast and we were concerned about sea air corrosion.
"Also, we have adopted state of the art stack calcination technology. We are reviewing the efficiency benefits of this now, since this is the first time for us to use this technology."
One possibility is that new technology used in the Chiba III plant could also be used in Yoshino's 60,000 square metres per year Mikawa plant near Nagoya in central Japan as the factory is designed to allow new technology and facilities to be added.
"Our Mikawa plant is our flagship plant in central Japan while our Chiba III factory is our flagship plant in East Japan," Umehara explained, "Mikawa opened in 1979 but since then we have rebuilt and expanded the plant. We have streamlined the facilities there."
Meanwhile, in spite of the anticipated upturn in demand, Yoshino Gypsum already has restructured its manufacturing operations over the past two years, believing that gypsum board use has passed its peak and is unlikely to return to its former level in future.
Asked about the company's reasons for closing two plants following the Chiba III plant opening, Umehara replied: "We wanted to introduce highly efficient production with Chiba III. We then closed the Tokyo plant. One reason was that it was an inefficient old plant; also, because of noise pollution as some neighbours claimed the plant was noisy."
The 25 million square metres per year capacity Tokyo factory was closed in March 2008, followed two years later by the 15 million square metres per year Nissan Kenzai Co Ltd plant in Toyama in June 2010, a joint venture company owned by Yoshino Gypsum and Nissan Chemical Co. Umehara noted that Yoshino plans to move equipment from the recently closed Toyama plant to other plants where the machinery can be utilised.
Closing the two old plants has involved the combined shutdown of 40 million square metres of plasterboard production capacity. Consequently, since opening the 60 million square metres per year capacity Chiba III plant at the end of 2007 and shutting the two old plants, Yoshino has added 20 million square metres per year to its previous capacity.
Yoshino products
Yoshino produces Tiger brand gypsum board in four standard thicknesses – 9.5mm, 12.5mm, 15mm and 21mm; and two standard widths - 910mm and 606mm. The standard board length is 1820mm. Longer length boards used for traditional Japanese ceilings are available and are often used in traditional Japanese restaurants.
Both 9.5mm and 12.5mm board are used for walls and ceilings. Various specifications for gypsum cores and choices of lining paper for the board face and backing are available, depending on the plasterboard's eventual use.
All of Yoshino's plasterboard is fire resistant with actual resistance depending on the board thickness. The trend in recent years has been for more clients to choose 12.5mm board for extra fire resistance and sound proofing. Customers wanting greater sound insulation use 15mm and 21mm thick board.
Yoshino has developed a range of purpose-designed boards for specialised uses. Tiger Super Hard board, for example, can support a bending failure load twice that of standard Tiger Board and has a surface hardness four times that of Yoshino's standard board. In addition Tiger Super Hard has a low water absorption rate because its high density core is made with the same water resistance as Yoshino's purpose-made water resistant sheathing board. Apart from wall and ceiling use, Tiger Super Hard is recommended for flooring use due to its high density properties which include sound proofing and fire resistance. Plasterboard flooring has been used in Japan since the mid-1990s and is popular particularly in wooden houses.
One or two sheets of plasterboard are used for flooring, depending on the sound insulation required. Further sound proofing is possible using a double layer gypsum board ceiling underneath.
When a single 12.5mm sheet of high density plasterboard is used for flooring, the sheet is laid on a 12.5mm plywood base, after which a traditional Japanese wooden floor is laid on top. For greater sound insulation and fire resistance, two sheets of high density plasterboard are used, either laid directly on top of each other or sandwiched between 15mm plywood sheets and then covered with traditional wooden floor panels.
"In the housing sector we are getting into a new market replacing concrete with gypsum board. Gypsum board is fire resistant and the requirement for high rise buildings is a one hour fire rating which plasterboard meets," noted Yoshino Gypsum's general manager of marketing, Takayoshi Kikuchi, "Also, for sound insulation concrete requires 20cm thickness while gypsum has a natural sound insulation function. By replacing concrete walls with gypsum board the walls become lighter.
"After the Kobe earthquake in 1995 the government introduced an anti-seismic requirement for building structures and gypsum board meets that requirement. Walls must resist horizontal shaking. The building requirement is one times gravitational acceleration resistance and lighter walls are easier to make with gypsum board."
Construction systems
Gypsum board also meets Japan's revised code for office building construction, with multiple panels and other methods being used.
"The fire resistance requirement now is three hours for supporting walls. Gypsum board cannot meet all requirements but if a client wants to use plasterboard we can meet the three hour requirement," Kikuchi said, "We meet this by using multiple layers of board. We have verified this by testing.
"For two hours fire resistance two 21mm thick panels are used for each side of a wall. As four 21mm panels give two hours' fire resistance, six 21mm panels used as two sets of three panel thickness each side of the wall can meet the three hour requirement."
Yoshino's technical department also has developed a new system of using gypsum board for the walls surrounding elevator shafts in high rise buildings. The advantage with using plasterboard is that the board only needs to be used for the external shaft wall face as the inside of the shaft is not open to public view.
"We try to sell gypsum board as a construction system. We introduced our 'S' wall system employing two 21mm panels to the market for elevator shaft walls where gypsum board was not used before," Kikuchi explained, "Autoclaved lightweight concrete panels used to be used for elevator shaft walls but our 'S' wall system is lower cost and lighter in weight. We use 21mm panels because of the wind load resistance requirement due to the elevator lift going up and down all the time. Also, elevator walls need to be fire resistant."
Product range
Among other special purpose plasterboards, Yoshino supplies its Hi-Clean board range for use in hospitals and school classrooms. The board is designed to absorb and decompose formaldehyde to prevent the development of sick building syndrome.
Yoshino's thin decoration Tiger Glass Rock Clear, a 4.3mm thick plasterboard designed for housing renovation and Tiger Anero board also have formaldehyde absorption and decomposition properties. The same properties are offered by Yoshino's Hi-Clean Gyptone and Hi-Clean Marbletone ceiling tiles.
For use as interior walls and ceilings in bathrooms and kitchens, Yoshino manufactures Tiger Moisture Resistant board which is faced and backed with water repellent liners and supplied in 9.5mm and 12.5mm thickness.
Another product, Tiger Non-combustible Moisture Resistant board is a non-combustible board containing water repellent additives in the core and provides fire protection as well as water resistance.
"The market for one hour fire resistant gypsum board is flooded so our next target market is ceilings," Kikuchi remarked, "We are trying to sell our Hi-Clean board to schools, since Hi-Clean board has added value for schools and other buildings because it absorbs and decomposes formaldehyde in the air.
"The government's requirement is that the environment be improved for vulnerable groups so schools are a market because of infant and high school pupils; also, buildings for older people. At the moment this market is not growing but it is not coming down either."
Meanwhile, Yoshino also produces a range of ceiling tiles, most of which are held in place with screws as modern ceiling suspension systems are not as popular in Japan. As noted earlier both Gyptone tiles, which are marketed for their fire resistance and Yoshino's Marbletone range of ceiling tiles are offered either in standard or Hi-Clean versions, the latter offering formaldehyde absorption and decomposition properties.
Other decorative ceiling tile ranges include Dreamtone featuring a circular polka dot pattern and the Tiger Seven range featuring a printed pastel colour relief pattern and a white base colour. Yoshino also produces the Squaretone ceiling tile range for applications where enhanced sound absorption is required.
