C.M. Yang, chairman of Sleek Co., Ltd. A leading maker of fuses for the global information technology (IT) and electronics industries, never pauses in his pursuit of "newer and better" products and management practices.

Yang decided to set up Sleek in 1993, when he realized that there was no truly world-class fuse manufacturer in Asia despite the maturity of the industry and the intensity of competition worldwide.
"When Sleek started making fuses about 10 years ago," Yang recalls, "Taiwan was importing about 10 billion fuses every year. The quality of Taiwan-made fuses was too poor for use in IT and electronics products. Now, thanks to our efforts, the import volume is very low. Most of the biggest domestic exporting manufacturers now use our fuses, which feature more advanced technology, better quality, and stronger durability than fuses produced by our counterparts around the world-including those made by top manufacturers in the industrially advanced nations."

The company's sales do not stop with domestic manufacturers; Sleek now plays a key role in the global fuse market, supplying high-end items to major companies in the IT, electronics, communications, and lighting industries. Among its most important customers are Sony, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, Hitachi, IBM, Texas Instruments, and Delta.

"We aim to be a world-leading fuse maker with the most streamlined operations," the chairman asserts, "so that we can further enhance our already superior flexibility, lighten our costs, accelerate our speed of development, and maintain high margins."

These capabilities enable Sleek to concentrate on the build-to-order mode, which means low product and materials inventories (and, of course, a lighter cost burden) and the generation of higher margins.



Choosing Customers



As part of its streamlined approach, the company carefully chooses its customers and aims to support only one buyer per country in a specific industry segment through the forging of long-term joint-development ties. "We do not pursue big-volume production," Yang explains, "but each fuse that we produce must have the highest technical level and best quality. We choose only one company in each area, so that we can cooperate and grow together with it. The company gives us its specific requirements, and Sleek supports it with our unmatched know-how and product-development capability. This strategy allows us to control our production volume effectively while constantly upgrading our technology and improving our quality.

"Do not neglect the importance of the tiny fuse in a finished IT or electronic product. If the manufacturer of the product chooses the right fuse supplier, it can greatly cut production costs and upgrade overall quality and durability of the product."

One example of Sleek's cooperation and symbiotic growth with a customer is its development, to meet the requirements of a major liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor maker, of the world's first surface-mount device (SMD) fuses with built-in element wires. This has widened the firm's technological lead even as it has enabled a major cut in the overall cost of an LCD-monitor circuit board, not to mention the board's improved durability, safety, and quality.

Yang claims that his company is one of only five SMD fuse manufacturers in the world, and the one whose element-wire fuses offer the highest accuracy level of all with the required AMP value.

The company not only makes fuses, but offers comprehensive technical support as well. An example of this support is provided by the LCD monitor maker mentioned above, which asked Sleek to develop the new type of fuse because of its space-saving and better fuse-protection features. Sleek found that all of the SMD fuses available on the market used a tin solder paste layer, which caused a high level of inaccuracy in the needed AMP. Inability to control accuracy adequately, Yang says, is what causes most SMD fuse suppliers to take so long for delivery.

Sleek has patented its element-wire SMD fuses in the United States, Taiwan, mainland China, Japan, and Germany. Even after the patents expire in 10 years, Yang insists, most SMD fuse makers will still have to overcome a lot of technical challenges before they will be able to produce the fuses smoothly.



Innovation and Integration



For Sleek, Yang comments, R&D means innovation and the integration of all of the company's experience and know-how as well as an insistence on the highest quality rather than a concern for costs. Most of the equipment the company uses from development through production, Yang says, was developed by Sleek itself because "many of our fuse models were not produced by anybody else, and such innovative products always require new production methods and equipment."

Another example of innovation was the company's introduction of 3.6mm x 10mm glass-tube fuses in 1993. It was the first in the world to do this, Yang claims, adding that the international market was shocked by the improved protection and much smaller size offered by the new fuses.

In another "first," Sleek runs the world's first in-house TUV-approved fuse-testing lab, allowing the company's new products to be certified at home.

"We know," the chairman notes, "that the fuse-production business requires a lot of labor cost, and we do everything we can to streamline our processes and use the money that this saves to upgrade our materials and our overall quality." The company has only 25 production-line workers, but they turn out up to 800,000 fuses of various kinds every day.

All are sold under the "Sleek" brand. "Ever since the company's establishment," Yang stresses, "we've insisted on marketing all of our fuses under the 'Sleek' brand. When we were new to the line, our evaluations told me that if we followed the old way there would be no space for us to survive. Now we choose our customers, because we don't believe that any customer who stresses price over quality can turn out good products."

His main rivals, he says, are Little Fuse of the U.S. (in the business over 90 years) and Wickmann of Germany (over 80 years). He is confident that he can further advance Sleek's lead over those rivals in the next few years.

Sleek is ISO9001:200-certified and its products enjoy UL, CSA, VDE, and TUV quality approval. The company moved to a modern new plant in the central Taiwan city of Taichung last year in order to meet the rapidly increasing demand from customers worldwide, and provisions have been made for further expansion whenever necessary