Taiwan's YOKE Commands 65% of Global Market for Fall-Protection Equipment

Always focusing on improvements of product quality and safety, Taiwan-based YOKE Industrial Corp., a supplier of products for high-altitude workers under its own brand “YOKE”, has commanded about 65% share of the global market for such industrial equipment as the biggest branded vendor.

YOKE started out in 1985 by trading lift chains, hooks and related accessories, mainly with the U.S. customer, Ultra Safe, and then ventured into developing and manufacturing such products in 1996 through setting up its first factory in Taichung City, central Taiwan.

Following decades of product improvement and safety, the firm has obtained approvals from BG-Prufzert of Germany, ABS of the U.S., DNV of Norway, SABS of South Africa, CSA of Canada and ARAMCO of Saudi Arabia, with its factory meeting ISO 9001 and Chinese National Laboratory Accreditation.

During 2005-2008, the company's annual turnover remained over NT$700 million (US$2.33 million), with gross profit rate of 30-40%, but dropped to only about NT$476 million (US$15.86 million) in 2009 due to the global  financial meltdown, forcing changes in operations and strategies from the ground up to secure sustainable development.

Turning a crisis into opportunity to make YOKE more competitive, the company's chairman, R.D. Huang, said that his company decided to construct new headquarters along with an automated warehouse in 2009, and restructured the organization and operations to focus on the segments for safe-lifting and fall protection accessories.

Believing that market-oriented designs and competitive prices are as important as quality, Huang notes that achieving economies of scale in production is key to YOKE's effort on sustainable growth, enabling his company to market products globally at lower cost than rivals from emerging nations.

Although YOKE's new operational strategies compromise margins to some extent, sales look  promising as turnover has surged  from NT$884 million (US$29.46 million) in 2010 to NT$1.87 billion (US$62.33 million) last year, and is expected to hit NT$2.34 billion (US$78 million) this year, with gross profit rate of over 20%.

YOKE is world's No.1 brand of fall-rotection equipment, followed by Usang of Taiwan, Pensafe of Canada and Krams of India, and has Siemens, Mercedes Benz, GE, Honeywell on its customer list, as well as first client, Ultra Safe, whose annual orders with YOKE have exceeded US$1 million annually.

Also notable is that YOKE has won the 9th SME Innovative Research Award, the 5th Rising Star Award and the 17th National Award of Outstanding SMEs over the past years in Taiwan, which enhance its global reputation in the line. (SC)