The Tsubakimoto Chain company has opened a £500m chain-making factory in Kyotanabe, Japan, which it says is probably the world`s largest and most efficient plant of its type. The 230,000m² facility — equivalent to the area of 57 football pitches — will have three times the production capacity for drive chains of the company`s previous Osaka-based plants.

The new plant is highly automated, using auto-guided vehicles and automated storage and retrieval systems. The site`s plastics plant can run unmanned 24 hours a day.

The Kyotanabe site also includes a technical centre that will be reponsible for developing new products, such as a recently launched low-noise drive chain which directly replaces standard roller chain but is 6-8dB quieter. Another of the centre`s key roles will be to integrate test data into the production lines to ensure continuous product improvement.