For Taiwan Lighting Makers China Means Pain for Gain

In today's ever more rapidly changing world, the ability to constantly develop new products is a key to manufacturers' survival, not least of all in the lighting business. Like their counterparts in many other traditional industries, lighting makers in Taiwan are increasingly applying high-tech features to their products to add value and tap high-end niche markets.

Floor lamp producers have also followed this trend, turning out products with high-tech devices that enhance functionality and application scope. As the lamps become more sophisticated, they are also evolving beyond their original role as simple auxiliary lighting devices into centerpiece items with advanced functions and greater decorative effect.

As the floor lamp market heats up, manufacturers are putting everything they have into creating new designs that can stand out in the increasingly crowded market. Over the last decade or so, Taiwan's lighting manufacturers have turned out a number of innovative floor lamps, including torch floor lamps, pronged mother-and-son floor lamps, and floor lamps with angle-adjustable holders and arms. All have made quite a splash in the international market since their debut.

In recent years, however, new floor lamps have tended to focus on unique designs to meet individual tastes. This has encouraged lighting makers to develop a wider variety of lamp designs than they did in the past. It has also put style on par with function in the product development stage.

In the late 1980s, when Taiwan's manufacturing environment began to deteriorate, many domestic manufacturers, particularly in traditional industries, began to relocate to cheaper overseas production sites. Mainland China has been one of the top destinations for these firms, due to the mainland's cheap land and labor and shared language and cultural with Taiwan. Today, more than 90% of Taiwan's lighting makers have moved their production lines to the mainland, and many of them have located in Dongguan of Guangdong Province, which is geographically close to the port city of Hong Kong.

Bright Prospects Across the Strait


Established in 1984, Ever Bright Lighting Group also joined the cross-strait exodus of Taiwan's lighting industry, landing on the other shore in 1992, with the opening of its Dongguan plant. After more than a decade of hard work, Ever Bright now operates five lighting plants in Dongguan.

Ever Bright's mainland production is divided between classic lamps made mainly of copper and modern lamps made primarily of stainless steel. It now boasts a wide variety of lighting products, including floor lamps, table lamps, wall lamps, ceiling lamps and outdoor lamps, which the company exports to countries around the world.

In earlier years, Ever Bright was famous for its innovative mother-and-son floor lamps, which were popular for many years in the world market. Today, the group has shifted focus to the increasingly popular classic lamps featuring elegant designs.

Zheng Zhu, an executive at Ever Bright, says that in both its classical and modern product lines, Ever Bright has been making wide use of glass for shades and covers, taking advantages of the material's flexibility and transparency, as well as the range of color possibilities it allows.

Ever Bright uses several different types of glass in its lamps, including frosted glass, faux-jade glass, and color glass. "It is harder and more time consuming to make glass lamps because of the complicated and lengthy blowing and molding processes, " Zheng explains. "Our workers also need a high level of skill and experience to work with glass. This is not easy for copycats to imitate, which means glass lamps have a longer life-cycle in the market."

Apart from glass lamps, Ever Bright has expanded into the production of advanced LED (light emitting diode) lamps, which have a huge market potential. Unlike traditional bulbs, LED lamps can be formed or grouped in many different kinds of lighting products through different combinations of diodes. LED lamps can be used indoors, outdoors, above ground or underground, and they are well appropriate for both household and commercial lighting applications.

Ever Bright purchases most of its production materials in the mainland, while sourcing a small portion of high-end materials and parts from Hong Kong or Taiwan. "Most of our products are self-developed and some are based on designs provided by our clients, " Zheng says. "Before introducing a new lamp, we usually conduct marketing research and discuss the feasibility of the production with our clients."

To enhance R&D capability and catch up with the world trend, Ever Bright often sends its managers and researchers to attend leading international lighting shows. Among them are the Dallas International Lighting and Accessories Market, Light + Building in Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany, the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair, and the Annual International Fair in Shenzhen, China. Based on the industry trends noted at these events, Ever Bright turns out an average of 100 or so new lamps and lighting devices each month.

In addition to variety, quality is a top concern in Ever Bright's lamps, which have been approved by numerous world standards, such as UL, TUV, and CE. In addition to conducting in-house product testing, Ever Bright commissions outside experts and advanced labs in Taiwan to conduct more sophisticated testing for its high-end products.

Thanks to its strict quality control and testing processes, Ever Bright's lamps have been categorized as "A class" products by the mainland's customs office, meaning they are allowed expedited clearance for export.

Currently Ever Bright's monthly production value amounts to US$2~3 million, of which, floor lamps accounts for 30%. The United States and Europe are its major export markets, absorbing 80% of the group's exports, while Japan and Southeast Asia together take in only 10%. Major U.S.-based retailers such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart, as well as lighting chain stores, are among the major buyers of Ever Bright's lamps.

"One of Ever Bright's most reliable assets is the possession of its own manufacturing technologies and the ability to upgrade such technologies to turn out new and better products, " Zheng says.

Patience Pays

Fuder Industrial Co., established in northern Taiwan's Taoyuan County in 1981, is an experienced lighting manufacturer and exporter. In its early years the company turned out mainly lighting parts, and later on became involved in the manufacture of whole set lamps. The company has established a strong image in the industry, and is noted for its innovative products, particularly its mother-and-son floor lamps.

Frustrated by Taiwan's high-cost manufacturing environment, Fuder moved its production base to the mainland in 1995, and joined the industrial cluster formed in Dongguan by Taiwanese counterparts. Nine years later, Fuder now employs 300 people at a 20, 000-square-meter lighting plant, where it designs 200 new lamp models each year.

Recalling the painstaking efforts of those first few years in the mainland, company manager Charly Liao says that good personal relationships are important to succeeding in the mainland. "Due to difference in politics, social structure and living style, the people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have very different ideas. The things that work in Taiwan are not necessarily going to work in the mainland, " he says.

To overcome the culture gap, Liao has spared no efforts in cultivating close relations in the mainland. As a result, he has made many good friends there. "Having good relations with the people there also helps us run a good business there, " Liao states.

Compared to the workers in Taiwan, the ones in the mainland are relatively more careless and less intelligent. But Liao believes that there is no worker that can not be educated, so long as the employer has enough patience. "At the beginning, we had to repeatedly teach local workers the manufacturing processes step by step, and then we still had to keep a close eye on them to make sure they followed instructions. Our workers have improved a lot in recent years, but we still have to keep teaching them the skills they need to do their job, " he says.

Fuder's plant in the mainland turns out various lamps, including table lamps, wall lamps and floor lamps, most of which are made of metal. Of the total output, floor lamps account for around 20%. A quality-conscious producer, Fuder has CE, TUV, UL, and ISO 9001-2000 certification.

Europe has been Fuder's major export outlet, absorbing 80%-90% of the company's exports. Recently the firm has increased its business to the United States--a market on which the company is pinning much of its hopes for future growth.

Other than marketing self-developed products, Fuder welcomes OEM and ODM orders. Liao is confident of the company's manufacturing technologies and believes that Fuder can handle any kind of order.

Fuder has established a trading department to help its clients purchase special lamps or lighting parts. "We offer comprehensive services to our clients, " Liao says.

Certified Quality

Once a leading lighting manufacturer in Taiwan, Kingtec Lighting Co. moved all of its operations across the Taiwan Strait in 1991. Today it supplies both lighting parts and lamps, and its mother-and-son floor lamps have earned a good reputation in the world market.

Since Kingtec set up its foothold in Shenzhen of Guangdong Province, it has expanded its operations rapidly. In 1992, Kingtec established a branch in Hong Kong to take care of shipping and exporting affairs.

Moreover, the company has built up a hardware plant in mainland to provide sophisticated metal surface treatment for the company's lamps. This high-level treatment is one of Fuder's main selling points in the world market.

Kingtec obtained its ISO 9002 certification in 1996 and was ISO 9001-certified in 1999. Its products have also earned the UL, GS and T-Mark badges. The company's major export outlets are the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.