Innovation, alongside differentiation, is the second reason why Taiwan produces outstanding hand tool products. Infar Industrial Co. in Lugang Township of central Taiwan’s Changhua County, for instance, has sold wrenches to U.S. firm Snap-on, a tools supplier to Boeing, and to Stanley’s Facom brand, with a wrench priced at up to NT$3,000 (US$99). Due to its top-notch products, which rival the quality of those from Germany and Japan, the firm is unconcerned by competition from mainland China.
“We’re always pursuing perfection,” said Chen Tai-hong, Infar’s general manager, adding that his company does not compete with mainland Chinese manufacturers in terms of price but rather in patents, quality and services. Its products are tested over and over again for up to one year before going to market. Currently, Infar possesses more than 100 patents for wrenches. “We’ve something unique that cannot be found anywhere else and that is differentiation,” he said. Notably, Taiwan inventors have around 3,000 patents for gear wrenches, which are typically made up of less than 10 components.
About a decade ago, digital wrench producer Eclatorq Technology Co., based in the Tanzi industrial zone in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, combined locally manufactured technological products such as integrated circuit chips with traditional hand tools. Its digital wrenches, which feature sensors to measure torque, can be used to lock screws of different sizes—ranging from tiny, needle-like screws to the 6-centimeter varieties used in bridge-building and other major construction projects—to an accuracy of 1 percent.
Similarly, King Tony Tools Co., a manufacturer with over NT$1 billion in yearly revenue, focuses on producing variously colored and styled tools. Such items have grown in popularity in Southeast Asia and Western countries.
According to a local industry expert, Taiwan’s leading role in global hand tool R&D derives from the fact that local manufacturers, as a rule, seek to exceed internationally recognized quality standards in such areas as torque settings, strength and endurance.
Academia-industry collaboration is the third reason for the superiority of Taiwan’s hand tool industry.
The know-how of China Steel Corp., based in southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City, is a major advantage. “CSC has developed special steel materials to support local hand tool manufacturers,” said David Elite Consulting Co. CEO Chang Jia-xian, adding that CSC’s efforts in providing local businesses with custom-made materials have helped sharpen their competitive advantages at every stage of the production cycle.
Three years ago, CSC and National Yunlin University of Science and Technology in western Taiwan’s Yunlin County jointly set up the Next Generation Hand Tools Engineering Research Center to assist local manufacturers in developing quality products. Also, the Taiwan Hand Tool Manufacturers’ Association organized delegations to visit hand tool research centers in Germany, and plans to deepen technical exchanges with the Taiwan Society for Metal Heat Treatment in Taipei City.
Chang Shih-ying, associate professor in NYUST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said that they spent a year collecting various high-quality hand tools made in other countries and, through thermal analysis and other methods, investigated how their materials, sizes and angles determine their functions. They also compared the functionality of the implements to equivalent Taiwan products.
Taiwan’s hand tool industry faces two challenges. One is the talent base. Wu Ming-jie, general manager of locking plier manufacturer Gong Maw Enterprise Co., pointed out that many hand tool factories now rely heavily on foreign labor to fill low-level technician positions. In some electroplating factories, 40 percent of the laborers come from such countries as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Indeed, Taiwan’s hand tool industry needs greater attention from the government and the vocational education sector to prevent talent shortages from impacting its manufacturing competence and competitiveness.
Another challenge is that as order quantities and prices of Taiwan-made hand tools are still controlled by international brand owners, the final sales prices of goods are usually three to five times greater than the amounts paid to their Taiwan manufacturers. In response, an increasing number of local producers have begun building their own brands.
Notably, Brighton-Best International (Taiwan) Inc., which owns the largest online ordering website for socket screw products in the U.S., has provided a distribution channel for 13 Taiwan hand tool manufacturers to jointly promote their branding projects.
“As the market keeps changing, we can’t just stand still,” said Yu Hsiang-chen, chairman of Redai Precision Tools Co. Ltd. and Taiwan Hand Tool Manufacturers’ Association. On the desk at Redai’s meeting room is a newly developed set of hand tools for U.S. electric car company Tesla Inc. “To remain competitive, you must be dissatisfied with the current situation and move faster than your rivals,” he added.
Always seeking to improve, Taiwan’s hand tool companies, despite being smaller in size and unable to attract much attention internationally, are constantly working to upgrade their products, promote R&D and boost innovation. They are not afraid of frustration and are always trying to achieve perfection. This is how they secured a key place in the global industry. (E)
[By Wan Nien-sheng / tr. by Pat Gao]