Sheng Chyean Ranks Among World's Top-5 Bar-making Machine Producers

Over the past decades similar stories have been told in various export-reliant sectors in Taiwan-the ultimate achievement for many local suppliers of industrial machines and tools is to catch up with their German and Japanese doyens in terms of quality and reputation so as to break their domination of global markets. The sympathetic part is that the ending to such stories tends to be repetitive, with most Taiwan-based makers still reportedly attempting to break German and Japanese monopolies. But the bar-making machinery sector in Taiwan has seen Sheng Chyean Enterprise Co., Ltd. rewrite the discouraging episode: the maker has successfully squeezed into the world's top-five list with its own SC-branded line.

Sheng Chyean, established in 1994 in Taiwan's central county of Changhua, ventured into manufacturing bar-making machinery after several years of selling mechanical parts. With 14 years of dedication, the company has grown into the leader of the sector in Taiwan, running two factories in Taiwan and China with one in Thailand, almost building a full supply chain independently.

Sheng Chyean's nearly fully-integrated production line enables the maker to offer, unlike many of its peers in Taiwan, wide-ranging products, including combined drawing machines, combination bar-to-bar cold drawing machines, linear-bar machines, metal round pipe/bar end chamfering machines, high-speed round bar straightening machines, BK round-bar straightening machines, high-speed irregular bar straightening machines, automatic straightening press machines, automatic wire- straightening cutters, flat rolling mills and various peripheral parts and accessories. These products have been exported worldwide, particularly gaining rising popularity in Germany, Russia, Japan, Turkey, India, the U.S., Mexico, Egypt, Australia and Southeast Asia.

R&D Dedication Helps

Being R&D oriented certainly has helped Sheng Chyean achieve its current success; while the maker has tapped its early experience in mechanical parts maintenance to improve mechanical functions to develop a slate of bar-making machinery since launching its first in 1993.

Shrewdly improving German and Japanese features, Sheng Chyean has developed its top-performing multi-functional bar-extender, which adopts a high-tech computer, Mitsubishi-made controller and touch monitors.

Perhaps even more ingenious than emulating and improving on German and Japanese counterparts, Sheng Chyean has built a bar extender that equals 90% of the historical leaders' performance, but can deliver such machine at an incredible, irresistible half or even one-third of their prices. For buyers who are especially price-conscious, Sheng Chyean's achievement of the performance-and-price balance is an offer too good to refuse.

Confident of its solid R&D, Sheng Chyean offers warranties, even covering faulty use, which is usually unheard of in the industry. The company is also totally service-oriented: providing full turnkey solutions and dispatching senior engineers worldwide to help buyers install and operate its machines. Backing its machinery with amazing warranties and helpful after-sales services has enabled Sheng Chyean to impress global buyers to instantly associate SC-branded bar-making machinery with quality, performance, efficiency and satisfaction.

Diversifying Into e-Warehousing

Knowing the importance of not putting all the eggs in one basket, Sheng Chyean recently diversified into developing computerized warehousing via its reinvested company Lung Yi Machinery Co., Ltd., also located in Changhua.

Believing in the merits and marketability of e-warehousing equipment in an age of globalized competition, where better organization and faster turnaround can realize cost efficiency in inventorying, improved customer service, streamlined labor, and enhanced bottom-line, Lung Yi, backed by Sheng Chyean's experience in mechanical expertise, has successfully developed the most economical computerized warehousing system, which has won ample official recognition in Taiwan.

Tapping R&D resources at Sheng Chyean, Lung Yi has been able to build warehousing system featuring great expandability: the modular design enables each individual unit to be easily plugged into another for efficient addition to inventory.

Again, Lung Yi does not overlook the cost-efficient advantage offered by its parent-delivering such warehousing system for less than NT$1 million (about US$31,250 at US$:1 NT$32). Available in two models, the system is configured in pallets and baskets, with the former rated at up-to-2 metric tons and the latter 50kg; while the company also accepts made-to-order designs.

E-management to Maximize Security

Sheng Chyean chairman Y.C. Huang clearly realizes the critical role of information and resource security as the way to keep at bay rivals and industrial spies. After all, knowledge is power, which has to be retained by preventing potential thieves and copycats from accessing confidential data. As such the firm thoroughly adopts e-management techniques to achieve such goal.

Besides implementing ERP (enterprise resource planning), TQM (total quality management), PDM (product data management) and investing considerably in MIS (management information system), the company optimizes corporate communication by setting up links between its management's PDAs, smartphones and a central database and server. Huang says that the costly e-management system also helps to avoid information leakage and theft.

Obviously a believer in the value of information technology, the chairman says the company embraces IT as a tool to eventually achieve total document-digitization, running its operations without paper, adding that "Sheng Chyean is always trying to create value that can reinforce corporate presence in markets."

Sharing a common sentiment in business, Huang stresses workforce as a valuable corporate asset: "Hiring a person is important but turning that staffer into a worthy lifetime personnel is even more."

Among Taiwan's Top-16 Enterprises

Setting one more milestone on December 17, 2008, Sheng Chyean was honored as one of Taiwan's Top-16 Enterprises of the year by the government-funded China Youth Career Development Association, with Huang lauded by President Ma Ying-jeou for his longtime dedication to the firm and national industrial development.

Huang attributes Sheng Chyean's success to its rational corporate mindset, saying: "Sheng Chyean continues to progress and absorb new concepts gradually without being impetuous and reckless. Also, I insist on empowering management and workers to create the feeling of enablement and cohesiveness in the company."

Deservedly named the chairman of the Changhua Youth Career Development Association for 2008 by having steered his company well on its way to being one of the heavyweights in the bar-making machinery sector worldwide, Huang is set to add more pages to his corporate history that will be read by entrepreneurs in Taiwan as they pursue to duplicate his success and excellence.