Machine Tool Makers Boost R&D Spending on Niche Products

Taiwan's leading machine-tool makers, including the She Hong Industrial Co., Awea Mechantronic Corp., Falcon (Chevalier) Machine Tools Co., and You Ji Machine Industrial Co., have set aside extra funds to boost the development of innovative products. This, they hope, will help them get through the global economic recession that has weakened worldwide demand for machinery since last October. .

With the R&D increase, the manufacturers say, they will be able to introduce such advanced products as large-sized vertical CNC (computerized numerical control) lathes, five-face machining centers, horizontal boring/milling machines, and vertical grinding machines in the first quarter of this year. The new products are aimed primarily at niche markets in the aerospace, TFT-LCD (thin film transistor-liquid crystal display), mining, and machinery processing industries.

Awea completed development of a 2,000-4,000mm column-moving horizontal boring/milling machine last year, and expects to have a 5,000mm horizontal boring/milling machine (destined mainly for the semiconductor and optoelectronics industries) ready by the middle of this year. The company believes that such large machines have promising prospects in Taiwan because only one other domestic firm, the FATEK Corp. (a subsidiary of the Far East Machinery Group), can make them.

Awea reports that it will focus on high-efficiency machines that can be differentiated from the products of domestic rivals. It will boost value-added, for instance, by equipping its horizontal machining centers with automated pallet change devices.

She Hong sales manager Lin Yi-shun says that competitive prices help make five-face machining centers some of his company's most popular products, with more than 100 of the machines being sold to machinery makers and TFT-LCD producers so far.

She Hong plans to start developing even larger models, with a processing range of eight meters, in the first quarter of this year. The larger machines will meet the special needs of customers from niche markets in the aerospace and TFT-LCD industries.

Last year Falcon sold more than 10 large double-column grinding machines, double-column milling machines, and horizontal boring/milling machines. These machines cost over NT$10 million (US$300,300 at NT$33.3:US$1) each, and their good sales give evidence of the company's expertise at developing large machine tools.

Falcon's R&D team is currently making an all-out effort to develop a high-level vertical grinding machine with a 22-degree swing for its spindle head. The company says that this machine, which will be the first of its kind to be manufactured in Taiwan, can be used for the machining of bearings and sockets. The new model will debut at the 2009 Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS), to be held on Mar. 2-7 at the Taipei World Trade Center.

Alliance for High-value-added Products

To encourage domestic machine-tool manufacturers to develop high-value-added products, the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) recently participated in the formation of an "A+ Machine-Tool Technology R&D Alliance" together with six local producers of CNC machine tools. The six: Tongtai Machine & Tool Co., Victor Taichung Machinery Works Co., Kao Fong Machinery Co., Dah Lih Machinery Industry Co., Falcon (Chevalier), and Long Chang Machinery Co.

The alliance plans to bring in advanced technology from Germany in a bid to boost the precision of Taiwan-made machine tools to the submicron level. ITRI claims that it has already developed all of the technology needed to produce ultra-high-precision machine tools, and that the technology will be introduced in mid-March this year.

ITRI sponsored an international symposium designed to promote the application of high-level technology, inviting such top foreign companies as R+P, GMN, and RAMPF to share with local manufacturers their experiences in developing submicron vertical machining centers.

T.C. Wu, director general of ITRI's Mechanical Industry Research Laboratories (MIRL), notes that Taiwan is the world's fifth-largest producer of machine tools and that the island's overall production of these products has been growing at a double-digit pace in the past few years. The island's machine tools have won popularity in the international market because of their high quality and low prices; in the past several years, however, local manufacturers have come under threat from the mid- and low-level products turned out by rival manufacturers in South Korea and Mainland China.

To counter this problem, ITRI suggests that domestic machine-tool manufacturers move quickly to establish high-level manufacturing technologies and concentrate on high-value-added products. The institute reports that it will transfer its submicron machining technology to domestic producers so that they can heighten the technological level of locally made CNC machining centers, lathes, milling machines, and grinding machines. (Jan. 2009)