RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
A passion towards the rubber that has never previously existed
TENERGY is the rubber that changed table tennis to the sport with more spin and speed.
The Research and Development team of BUTTERFLY had already started the development of the next rubber
before TENERGY received the accolade of a best seller. It was motivated by the pure thirst of
“something that has never existed”, “the pioneer of the world” and
“the high performance rubber to lead players to victory”.
The research proceeded based on plenty of know how accumulated by the development of TENERGY. Five years were needed to reach the targeted performance and four years more to produce the stable quality. As is often the case, performance and quality stand on the opposite sides. Performance may decrease if only quality is pursued even though the original targets related to performance are realised. Development must start from scratch if the composition of the materials and the production condition are changed. The work was patiently repeated to move closer to the required performance keeping high quality.
The manufactured sample combinations of the top sheet and the sponge exceeded 500 in total.
Not to mention the BUTTERFLY Research and Development staff, Zhang Jike, Jun Mizutani, Timo Boll
and Chuang Chih-Yuan conducted trials; several hundred hours were spent for trials.
There were many samples that were shelved because they could not pass the quality criteria
even they had shown good values in mechanical tests and received good comments from players.
In addition, the methods for evaluation and measurement of R&D became more delicate
and accurate during the period of nine years. DIGNICS 05 now to be released is the rubber that has passed all
the checkpoints and is finally complete.
The Research and Development team is full of staff with knowledge of rubbers who love table tennis.
Even staff members not mainly responsible for its development, all were confident about the progress of DIGNICS 05.
The person responsible overcame the various difficulties by obtaining new viewpoints thanks to the opinions and feedbacks
from other staff whenever had a problem. It is no doubt the organisational power and the passion of the R&D staff
that led the research and development for as long as nine years towards success.