After moving to mainland China more than 10 years ago, the Tigon Group has grown to become one of the leading lighting manufacturers on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. The company now operates seven factories, one headquarters building, three showrooms, and five employee dormitories at its 940,000-square-foot site in Dongguan, Guangdong Province.

The group encompasses Tigon Lighting Manufacturing Ltd. And Dongguan Penhall Lighting Co., which have a combined work force of 4,000. Of that total, 400 are lighting experts who handle the group's design and R&D work to meet differing market needs. "We make a concerted effort to introduce new models each year, and our products have proven very popular in the world market," comments a senior company official.

As a comprehensive manufacturer of lighting fixtures, Tigon operates its own hardware plant for stamping, forging, spinning, ending, cutting, and scrolling, along with other processes needed to turn out high-quality lighting components. There is also a welding department where workers carry out acetylene welding, braze welding, and electrode welding.

To ensure a perfect finish, the company uses dozens of grinders made especially for grinding hardware components of various sizes. Color treatment is provided by air-pressure spray painting, powder coating, manual painting, and the application of clear lacquer.

Tigon is currently able to turn out 320,000 lamps and 430,000 lampshades a month, and has annual sales of some US$78 million. Its major export markets are the United States and Europe.

The group set up a facility for the fabrication of polyresin materials in 1999 at the Dongguan complex, and now has more than 1,200 employees working there. "This kind of material enhances the quality of our lighting fixtures, and it has attracted the attention of buyers," comments Wu Wen-chang, Tigon's group chairman. "We also plan to apply other materials to further decorate our polyresin lamps."

In making lampshades, the chairman notes, "We use a wide variety of materials that run the gamut from fabric, tiffany, mica, and paper to wood strips, buckskin, and beads. The lampshades we offer are perfectly handcrafted in a variety of patterns." The group has 600 workers making lampshades, and they can turn out a maximum of about 1 million pieces a month--far higher than actual current production.

Tigon holds more than 100 patents on knockdown (K/D) lampshades, nanometer technology, and K/D chandeliers. Quality is assured by the firm's certifications under the UL, GS, CE, CUL, BS, CQC, and other standards regimes, and the group's factories are ISO9001 and ISO9002 certified. (JL)