Taiwanese Faucet Makers Move Toward High-end, High-tech Products

The island's manufacturers go upmarket with innovative designs and better materials

Faucet manufacturing is one of the oldest industries in Taiwan. Originating in the town of Lugang, Changhua County, faucet manufacturing on the island has flourished for over half a century, driven by a constant quest for improvement in quality and technology and, most recently, by the pursuit of high-tech, high-end innovation.

With technological support from Taiwan's leading R&D body, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a couple of faucet makers have been working hard to improve the functionality and enhance the added value of their products. Some of the results were unveiled at the 2011 Taipei Int'l B, C+Dex (Taipei International Building, Construction & Decoration Exhibition), held on Dec. 15 through 18 in the TWTC Exhibition Hall.

Justime
Known around the world for its dedication to developing faucets with added emotional and visual appeal, Justime, a brand owned by Taiwan's veteran bathroom fitting maker Shengtai Brassware Co., showcased a full line of its newest faucets at the show, including the Nature, Lucky 7, Still One, Chapter of Water, and Ether series. These products are a testament to the industry's robust R&D momentum.

Pointing to the Nature faucet, a 2012 iF award winner, Justime's marketing director Chinger Pan said, “This faucet presents the infinite imagination of life; our designers observed various kinds of organisms and sketched the contours of the product to express the idea of orderless growth and the concept of meristem [undifferentiated cells]. It is this kind of conceptual exterior design that brings the product to life.” Pan went on to note that an integrated shape with a minimum of joints and screws makes the faucet easy to clean. This is a mainstay design concept that is widely seen in the company's products.

Another 2011 iF Award winner, the Lucky 7, underlines Justime's design principle that “simpler is better.” Inspired by budding seeds that are the symbol of hope and happiness, Justime's skillful designers built a growing stalk-like look into the spout of the faucet, with a curved shape symbolizing the lucky number 7. The faucet is widely regarded as a masterpiece, Pam claimed, and has been chosen by a Chicago museum to include in its collection.

The design of the faucet not only assures an ideal height and distance of water flow but also reduces the use of materials, with the aerator inside the spout also helping to simplify the faucet's appearance. Furthermore, for better utility, the spout can be rotated 360 degrees and adjusted slightly higher or lower for different needs.

“Justime's products are designed to enhance the aesthetics of the bathroom space,” noted Pan, “Their design philosophy has been increasingly sought after by consumers, helping to boost Justime's brand recognition worldwide.”

Keeping Afloat
Following the traditional path for the industry, Shengtai started out making conventional brass and copper bathroom fittings in the central Taiwan county of Changhua in 1976. Today the company is one of the most experienced OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and ODM (original design manufacturer) suppliers of bathroom fittings in Taiwan, as well as a globally successful OBM (original brand manufacturer).

Shengtai's product range covers a variety of faucets, basins, showers, mirrors, and other sanitary accessories. With some 200 workers in its Taiwan plant and more than 2,000 in Thailand, the firm exports some 97% of its output, with 40% going to Europe, 50% to the U.S., and more than 2% to the Middle East. Pan claims that his company's sales in the U.S. and Europe maintained a robust growth in 2011, despite the slumping economies in those areas.

To maintain growth momentum amid the persistently uncertain global economy in 2012, Pan said, his company will open more outlets and virtual distribution channels in cooperation with local partners in Taiwan while continuing to reinforce partnerships with distributors and agents in other Asian countries. “Despite the increasingly harsh global economic conditions,” he said, “Justime will keep focused on R&D and market expansion in the years to come.”

T.A.P.
Incorporating advanced electronic and sensoring technologies developed by ITRI, the Affection series of faucets displayed by T.A.P. (Taiwan Aqua Professionals), a joint brand inaugurated by Wang Shyang-horng, chairman of the Chang Yi Shin Industries Co., at 2011 Taipei Int'l B, C+Dex also provided a look at the evolution of traditional manufacturing into the tech-driven end of the industry.

The main feature of this series, explained Wang, is its use of capacitive sensors which allow users to turn on the faucets by just touching them. He stated that in addition to their capacitive sensors, these faucets are also made with hydraulic power generation systems containing high-efficiency miniature hydraulic power generators and power-stingy electromagnetic valves powered by an ordinary battery that work for a year and a half.

“Battery replacement is easy as well,” Wang noted, “making these touch-and-lever operated faucets ideal for both commercial and residential use. To address hygienic and user-health issues, we've also built IR sensors into our faucets, all of which are made of lead-free copper to meet ASME standards and can be finished with antibiotic coatings according to customer requirements.”

Wang went on to say that the Affection series includes four different faucet models, each one of which is given a thematic name derived from a different emotion: love, faith, family affection, and friendship. “With its thematic name and symbolic exterior design,” he commented, “each model has a distinct emotional appeal to better impress users. This feature, along with the application of high technology, will help to build a higher profile for T.A.P.'s faucets.”

High-tech Faucets
Chang Yi Shin started out in 1960 by making parts and components for agricultural machines and pressing parts in Taiwan's central county of Changhua, and branched into copper faucets several decades ago. Over the past decade the company has been engaged in manufacturing IR faucets, and it has joined forces with ITRI in developing higher-end models incorporating state-of-the-art electronic technologies.

Following years of work the company has seen all of its automatic faucets pass related international safety and quality standards, including Canada's CSA, Europe's CE and FCC, and America's UPC and UL. Wang claimed that his company is Taiwan's first maker of its kind with UL1951 certification, as well as the first to develop an IR faucet coupled with a homemade hydroelectric generation system.

“Our company has been steadily growing at a rate of 10-20% over the past years, thanks mainly to strong shipments of IR faucets,” Wang said. “We will focus more on such products while building more cross-industry partnerships that will enable us better to venture into the production of high-tech faucets.” Well aware of the importance of branding, he added that his company will pin its hopes for sustainable business development on the promotion of the T.A.P. brand.

KOLM
It is no understatement to say that the launch of a full line of faucets and bathroom fittings of stainless steel by KOLM, a brand owned by the Sans Chuan Co., has heralded the beginning of the industry's manufacturing upgrade from copper and brass into stainless steel. Sans Chuan's chairman, Richer Xia, claimed that his company is the only manufacturer capable of mass-producing such products in Taiwan at the present time.

Xia noted that his company, founded in 1968 in Changhua County as a contract supplier of metal and plastic bathroom fittings, has devoted intense attention to the use of stainless steel in production for 30 years, and has consistently improved its manufacturing capability and capacity. These efforts have paid off, Wang said, claiming that few other companies can compare with Sans Chuan in the production of stainless steel bathroom fittings. The company is able to handle all of its own production processes, from molding, prototyping, and die casting to punching, welding, polishing, CNC machining, and packaging.

The company's collection of KOLM-brand stainless steel bathroom fittings encompasses a variety of basin faucets, shower faucets, showerheads, towel hooks and bars, toilet paper holders, soap holders, brush holders, glass shelves, angle valves, towel racks, and SPA faucets, all of which have been certificated to Singapore's PUB standard for water efficiency and unbeatable quality without the use of materials that are detrimental to health.

The Eco-friendly Trend
“The production of stainless steel bathroom fittings meets the growing trend toward eco-friendly products,” stated Xia, “mainly because, compared to copper and brass, stainless steel has no lead content, and finished products of the material don't need to go through the electroplating process that generally uses toxic chemicals.” The easy maintenance of such products, Xia added, also helps to cut use of bathroom detergents.

Despite the fact that they cost several times more than traditional fittings of copper and brass, Xia religiously believes that stainless steel models will become the market mainstream. “The California State Senate passed a law in January, 2010 to ban the sale of products made of materials containing lead,” he explained. “Although this should have alarmed Taiwanese makers still using conventional copper and brass, few of them have switched to stainless steel so far.”

Committed to the sustainable development of the industry, Xia said, his company unveiled its full collection of stainless steel products at the 2011 Taipei Int'l B, C+Dex in the hope of directing the attention of Taiwanese companies to the issue. “Being one of the oldest makers in the line,” he commented, “Suns Chuan aims to inaugurate the trend toward stainless steel and will work hard to promote the use of such products to consumers who have been used to using cheap but health-harming products made of lead-containing copper.”

In the coming years, Xia said, his company, which has built warehouses and logistics offices in Singapore and Malaysia, will extend its foothold to Australia, Japan, Germany, and Dubai with KOLM-branded products, while continuing to welcome OEM partners.