Taiwanese Machine and Component Makers Share Insight at K 2013 in Dusseldorf

A sizable number of Taiwanese manufacturers of plastic processing machinery and related components took part in the K Fair 2013, held October 16-23 in Dusseldorf, Germany, the world's largest trade fair for the plastics industry.

This year's K Fair hosted over 3,100 exhibitors from 59 countries and in 17 exhibition halls at the Dusseldorf Messe. Of the total, some 140 companies were from Taiwan, mostly in the Hall 12 and Hall 13, where a wide array of plastic machines, including extruders and plastic injection molding machines, were the main exhibits.

Interviewed by CENS, several Taiwanese exhibitors introduced their machines and parts, and shared mixed views on market developments.

Sun Lung

Perhaps one of the best-known Taiwanese exhibitors in the Hall 12, where the Taiwan Pavilion organized by Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), a semi-official export promoter, was situated, Sun Lung Gear Works Co., Ltd., saw steady flow of visitors interested in its gearboxes, particularly the Green Purified Gearbox and Super Toque Gearbox for co-rotating twin screw extruders.

The Green Purified Gearbox was a winner of Taiwan Excellence Award 2011 for the innovative filing-removing design incorporating internal magnetic balls coupled with an external spiral copper guided tube. The design makes self-purifying possible for the gearbox by naturally attracting and firmly holding metal filings generated during operation, without needing electrical power, enabling cleaning the gearbox anytime without stopping production and draining oil. Furthermore, it helps prolong the lifespan of the gearbox by up to 30-40% compared to that of models without the design, being patented in some countries already.

Developed to meet growing market demand for twin screw extruders worldwide, the Super Toque Gearbox series all feature high torque, which are partly driven by built-in thrust bearings that are assembled in tandem. For better transmission efficiency and higher output consistency, the series' gear grinding precision is enhanced to meet the Grade 3 of DIN standards, and structure is innovatively strengthened to greatly reduce rotation vibration, with operational noise effectively kept below 80dB. Made with high-quality parts, including Japanese NOK oil seals, for higher durability, the series are certified by TUV and CE Mark.

“We've developed the two gearbox series in response to end-users' persistent expectations for high production output, and market trends towards energy efficiency and environmental protection, which fuels market demand for better recycling technologies to deal with different plastic wastes,” said David Lo, Sun Lung's sales & marketing manager. “In fact over a third of customers we have served this year look for such higher-end gearboxes that can make their machines more energy-saving and productive, and our products successfully address the growing demand.”

Precision is Key

After sharing brief insights on ongoing market trends, Lo emphasized that gear makers should concentrate on achieving dimensional precision, which is key to reducing vibration, temperature and noise, and enhancing machines efficiency and reliability. Sticking to such philosophy, Sun Lung, founded in 1960 in Taiwan's southern city of Tainan and having won several invention and quality awards worldwide, invests considerably in improving precision of gear grinding every year to stay globally competitive.

That policy has paid off. Lo stated, “Sun Lung has a 70% share of the Taiwanese market as the leading gearbox brand, and scored a 27% growth in revenue for the first nine months of 2013. Meanwhile, overall export value has also showed a 70% increase, mostly driven by shipment to Indonesia, India, Turkey, Japan, and particularly China, which have surged eight times compared to 2012 when Sun Lung began penetrating the market.”

Lo noted that Sun Lung is very likely to supply a large German enterprise by the end of 2013, which will hopefully enable the Taiwanese gear maker, who has built overseas footholds in more than 50 countries and seen its global brand recognition among end-users aggressively rise in recent years, to better penetrate the European market following years-long efforts, and to establish a new growth driver for the years to come.

Sino-Alloy Machinery

Aiming to secure technological advantages against emerging rivals from China and Turkey in the increasingly competitive market for plastics and rubber extrusion lines, Sino-Alloy Machinery Inc., a manufacturer of co-rotating twin screw extruders and related auxiliary equipment and founded in 1999 in Taiwan's northern county of Taoyuan, demonstrated the dryer-less PET recycling line using its industry-leading underwater pelletizing technology at K 2013.

Mike Chen, general manager, pointed out that trying to survive intense global competition inspired his company to work out underwater pelletizing technology. He indicated that extrusion technology has fast advanced in recent years in two different ways: optimizing extrusion processes that are subject to ample knowledge about process planning; and improving auxiliary equipment designs, which calls for consummate techniques.

“Since Sino-Alloy is versed at technique improvement, our company therefore is dedicated to developing high-performance auxiliary equipment, such as pelletizers, feeders and recycling instrument, applying advanced technology as a savvy strategy,” said Chen.

Compared to conventional dryer-dependent recycling lines, Chen introduced that Sino-Alloy's dryer-less model features higher efficiency and lower energy consumption, mostly thanks to the PSQ series underwater pelletizer, which can synchronize pelletizing with crystallization to cut considerable time and power needed for drying. “Only a few companies across the world supply underwater pelletizers; and Sino-Alloy is the only one in Taiwan, as such machines call for higher techniques,” proudly stated Chen, who went on to say that the dryer-less PET recycling solution using underwater pelletizing technology received high accolades from buyers during the show.

Turnaround in Q4

Like most of its Taiwanese counterparts, Chen said that his company, which relies mostly on exports to Japan, has felt a dynamic turnaround in orders received since the fourth quarter of this year. “We surely have reasons to believe that the global market is reviving for now given that it had remained depressed since early this year,” he said.

Making the most of its efforts to maintain the growth momentum, the company is determined to take part in more plastic trade fairs, including Japan's NPE, China's ChinaPlas and Taiwan's TaipeiPlas, in the coming year, and has actively boosted added-value of its machines through optimizing exterior designs and insisting on using parts sourced from Taiwanese suppliers.

“All exterior designs, including tones and label layout, applied in our machines are optimized through discussions with experts and scholars,” stressed Chen. “In the meantime, we build Taiwan-made components and parts into our machines to guarantee customers the best possible quality at reasonable costs.” By taking advantage of the resources available locally, the globally competitive manufacturer is confident of not just outdoing emerging rivals technologically and qualitatively, but also matching those from Europe, the U.S. and Japan on added-value its machines offer.

Cheng Mei

Believing that helping end-users to ensure productivity and profitability with high-performance machines and economical solutions is the best strategy to meet increasingly fierce competition in the global market, Cheng Mei Machinery Co., Ltd., established in 1984 in Taoyuan County, northern Taiwan, introduced its continuous thermoforming machines of the CM-100 family at the show.

To say that the series is the strong proof of the company's excellent R&D capability is not an overstatement, as the CM-100 model, for instance, has both the upper and lower mold positioned under control of an AC servo motor to greatly enhance operational accuracy, precision and efficiency, and is CE-marked.

Furthermore, the machine adopts a special buffer design to effectively avoid chains binding caused by the insufficient heating of sheets, as well as high-performance ceramic heaters coupled with several sets of solid-state relay (SSR) and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) temperature controllers. Built with a PLC and user-friendly human-machine interface for easier operation, this machine can be used in producing food and industrial packaging materials, such as PP, HIPS, OPS, PET, PVC, PE, ABS, PSP, etc.

“From a viewpoint of competitive positioning, Taiwanese suppliers are mostly sandwiched between European and Asian emerging rivals,” said Kevin Wei, sales manager, “Therefore, how to generate added-value with our machine and make it different from rivals' models is Cheng Mei's sustained concern in global competition.”

Wei went on to say that to address the concern, Cheng Mei capably provides customers with not just high-performance vacuum thermoforming machines, but also durable, reasonably priced precision molds and dies as economical solutions. He said that the company stays competitive by using talented R&D engineers who skillfully apply state-of-the-art technologies, including CAD (computer aided design) to develop products with great performance, easy operation and maintenance, low energy consumption and high added-value.

Market Diversification

Cheng Mei has been specializing in developing and manufacturing air pressure and vacuum forming machines and cutting machines for nearly 30 years, and has achieved sustainable market diversification to stay afloat.

Wei noted that compared to most of its Taiwanese counterparts who have suffered downturns so far this year when the industry's overall exports have dropped partly due to global enterprises' waning willingness to invest amid economic uncertainty, and partly due to the rise of emerging competitors, his company has remained in comparatively good shape, primarily because its machines are shipped to over 200 different customers from 40 countries, including Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Romania, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, India, Dubai, Iran, South Africa, Egypt, and so forth.

“Exports to Central and South America and Asia particularly showed promising growth in the past months of this year, which offset declines in other markets, mostly thanks to Cheng Mei's time-tested reputation among both old and new customers,” stated Wei, adding that the company will step up exploring new markets and take part in more international trade fairs, including ChinaPlas and TaipeiPlas, in the years to come to carry on market diversification.

Ho Hsing & Genemax

Despite being first-time exhibitors, Ho Hsing Precision Industry Enterprise Co., Ltd., a seasoned maker of precision parts and components for plastic extrusion and injection molding machines, and its sales arm Genemax Industrial Inc. remained busy greeting visitors.

Exhibits at the two company's shared booth in the Hall 12 included screw components, sintered dual-hole barrels, screw spindles, twin screws, planetary-type screws, and blending-screw components, multi-embossing roller, cylindrical shaft complexes, cam screw blocks, and screws & barrels for experimental devices, some of which were regarded by foreign visitors as qualitatively equivalent with those made in Germany and Switzerland.

On the last day of K 2013, F.Y. Tsai, Ho Hsing's president, said, “Our products on display have attracted a constant influx of visitors, mostly from Europe, India and the Middle East, over the past days, because most of them can see the materials we apply in screws and barrels are the same with those commonly used across Europe. This helps us to quickly build recognition among foreigners despite Ho Hsing and Genemax both being first timers at the show.”

The materials Tsai mentioned above were the high-grade PM steels imported from Switzerland, Germany and Japan, which in recent years have been increasingly applied by Ho Hsing in production of high wear-resistance screws and barrels for coping with extrusion of various engineering plastics, including acrylonitrile butadience styrene (ABS), nylon 6-6, ployamides (PA), polyetheretherketone (PEEK), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyoxymethylene plastic (POM), etc.

Alex Chen, Genemax's general manager, said, “Compared to conventional steels that are still used by most Asian screw barrel makers as whole, PM steels are commonly applied by their European peers, which means that Asian companies are less likely to catch up with European rivals to penetrate higher-end segments without application of the materials and developing needed techniques. “We are the first supplier of screws and barrels made of PM steel in Taiwan, and boast well-honed technology and know-how to deal with it and turn out products comparable in quality with European companies,” he stated. Presently, Genemax successfully sells Ho Hsing's high wear-resistance co-rotating and counter-rotating twin screws to Japan.

Sustainable Development on Technology

The Taiwanese machinery industry's widespread recovery has got under way to benefit Ho Hsing and Genemax, as Tsai reported that after a flat growth in the third quarter, his company has seen orders increase faster than expected, and therefore optimistically foresees a robust growth in the fourth quarter of the year.

The first-time exhibitor also observed the aggressive development of his Turkish counterparts on the showground, saying, “Some Turkish screw and barrel makers may have caught up with Taiwanese suppliers in both quality and technology following years of exchanges with Germany to develop technology,” commented Tsai, continuing that it is realistic when most of them have learnt to use the same grades of steels as European partners.”

Based on his real-world experience, Tsai furthered that Taiwanese suppliers in fact can even match German manufacturers in processing techniques, but are generally inferior in thermal treatment technology and quality of materials used. For sustainable development, he said, “We will keep focusing on technology development and improvement, while convincing and educating end-users to accept high-resistance screws made of higher-graded steels though at higher cost.”

Founded more than four decades ago, Ho Hsing has developed into Taiwan's leading supplier of co-rotating twin screws by annual shipment with three production factories, all certified to ISO9001:2000, and more than 50 sets of different machine tools, over a half computer-controlled, and can supply high-precision screws with diameter sizes from 12mm to 200mm and exceptional quality, Bolstered by time-tested techniques and know-how, this seasoned maker also provides customers with troubleshooting of technological problems during production, according to Tsai.

As Tsai's most reliable sales partner who has worked effectively for mutual success in the past decades, Genemax's general manager Chen emphasized that his company will bring Ho Hsing's high-quality products to more international exhibitions, including IPF Japan and TaipeiPlas, in 2014.