Taiwan's furniture manufacturers may have all but packed up for low-cost mainland China, but many major wood furniture parts makers have continued to prosper on the island, gaining solid footholds in the international market with their high quality and competitively priced wares.

The stay-at-home stalwarts are showing that operational flexibility can be a major ace up their sleeves in today's fiercely competitive climate. They are also proving that with sophisticated manufacturing skills they can cut labor costs and upgrade product quality to keep rivals in low-wage nations at bay. Taiwan producers are also out-competing their foreign rivals by using superior materials and offering highly customized services and products to capitalize on lucrative niche markets. Their small-batch, large-variety production mode has further elevated profit margins, while enabling them to provide one-stop shopping for a broad range of products.

Furniture parts makers in Taiwan have also been hedging their bets by exploring new export markets and reducing their reliance on a few major-league furniture brands. Such strategy allows for more flexible operations, higher profits on new products, and more protection from regional market fluctuations.

Specialization has been another secret to the success of Taiwan's furniture parts industry. Most companies in this sector concentrate on a few specific items in order to accumulate expertise and stabilize customer bases.

By focusing on high-margin specialty items, furniture parts makers on the island have been able to resist the lures of cheap land and low wages across the Taiwan Strait. Combined with streamlined management and highly automated production lines, this strategy is opening new doors to international markets and helping Taiwan consolidate its position as a leading supplier of furniture parts.

Carved Parts Specialist

Established in 1980, Muh Yang Enterprise Co., Ltd. Is a specialized maker of carved wood furniture parts, decorative wooden flowers and carved wooden strips. The company supplies a full range of such parts, including hand carvings (such as applique, corbel, table legs and chair legs), ornaments, moldings and embossments. Most of these products are available in a wide variety of wood materials, including maple, oak, cherry, ash, beech, rubber tree, and white pear.

Chiou Hung-Rong, president of Muh Yang, claims that his company is currently the only fully integrated maker of its kind in Asia. He says that Muh Yang handles all of its production in-house, from mold and die development to production and packaging.

According to Chiou, the key factor in wood furniture parts production is mold and die development, which directly influences the quality and precision level of the parts. Chiou says that Muh Yang transformed itself from a metal die-carving company and boasts the strongest capability in Taiwan in developing molds and dies for wood furniture parts.

In the past, Chiou says, his company imported all its molds and dies from Italy and other countries at very high prices. The company now makes its own molds, beating the imported models on both quality and price, he says.

Muh Yang recently overcame several technical problems to begin mass production of wood-based rattan strips for furniture. The breakthrough represents a major achievement in the line, Chiou says, because in the past most of the detailing on rattan furniture had to be done by hand, greatly adding to the cost of such products. In addition, he adds, Muh Yang's rattan strips also resolve the long-standing difficulty of painting rattan furniture.

Over the years, Chiou says, Muh Yang has developed several thousands of models for carved wood furniture parts to meet the various requirements of customers worldwide. The company currently adds more than 30 new items per month, according to Chiou, who says that Muh Yang can develop any kind of carved wood part based on customer blueprints within 10 to 15 days for basic designs or one month for more sophisticated items.

Muh Yang currently has one plant in Taiwan and another in Vietnam. The Taiwan facility is responsible for producing high-margin items, while the Vietnam facility specializes in mass-produced and hand-carved items. Chiou says the Vietnam facility became profitable in its second year of operation thanks to surging demand from foreign furniture makers, who have been flocking into Vietnam to take advantage of the low wages there.

Muh Yang is internationally known for its superb product quality, speedy development, reliable service, and customer-oriented development policy. All of the company's products are exported to furniture makers in the U.S. and Asia.

Chiou is very confident about his company's business prospects since poly-material furniture parts are being increasingly banned by countries for environment-protection reasons. He also hopes to draw on Muh Yang's strong mold and die development capability to lead his company into the construction materials market.

According to Chiou, Muh Yang will not set up a production facility in mainland China because the import tariffs on wood materials are still too high to make operations there profitable.

Quality Slide Rails

Chuan Ching Wood Industry Co., Ltd. Is a specialized maker of wooden slide rails for dining tables and drawers. Established in 1988, the company currently ships about 250,000 sets of custom-made slide rails to furniture makers worldwide annually, making it the top company in its line in Taiwan.

Unlike most of its local counterparts, Chuan Ching has resisted the lures of moving to mainland China. Tracy Chou, a Chuan Ching sales representative, says that her company is still going strong in Taiwan, thanks in part to its emphasis on export sales, which account for about 90% of the company's output. Chuan Ching's main overseas markets are Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Chou says that her company has several unmatched competitive advantages. Principal of these is its small-batch, large-variety production mode, which enables the company to meet the needs of most small and medium-sized furniture makers worldwide. The company has also built a name for providing top-notch service and quickly developing slide rails to any specifications required by customers.

As an export-oriented business, Chuan Ching is under pressure to constantly elevate its product quality, says Chou. Most big-volume slide rail suppliers ship their products to a few big customers, making it easier to handle quality problems. Chuan Ching's customers, however, are dispersed widely around the globe and generally order smaller quantities of specialized items. This forces the company to pay especially close attention to the quality of its products. Chuan Ching claims that a German buyer once ordered 48,000 slide rails and only required replacement of 40 sets--all due to transport damage rather than quality problems.

Chuan Ching develops a full range of wooden slide rails for customers worldwide and produces all of the gears and steel rails used in its products with high-precision equipment. The company has also installed a wood-drying oven to carefully control the properties of the wood materials used in production. In addition, Chuan Ching invests heavily in the development of new and better slide rail mechanisms and constantly expands its product line to rapidly meet customer needs.

Chuan Ching currently has a 30-worker plant in central Taiwan's Nantou County. Chou is confident about her company's future, noting that top-end dining tables will always require the kind of high-quality slide rails that Chuan Ching specializes in.

Fastening on to New Markets

Established in 1980, the ISO-9001 approved Zyh Yin Enterprise Co., Ltd. Claims to be the world's No.1 specialized maker of fasteners for wooden furniture, accounting for 5% to 10% of the global supply volume.

Zyh Yin, which exports mainly to Europe and North America, has chosen to keep its production in Taiwan rather than joining its many industry peers that have moved to mainland China. Currently, the company turns out about 20,000 tons of wooden furniture fasteners annually at its 50-worker plant in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung County. It plans to more than double the capacity late this year or early next year.

Zyh Yin supplies a comprehensive range of items for furniture makers worldwide, including cabinet screws, confirmat screws, joint connector bolts, connecting screws, cylinder head in-hexagon screws, Euro screws, shelf support pins, hanger bolts, dowel screws, handle screws, break-machine screws, high-low screws, chipboard screws, join connector nuts, barrel nuts, insert nuts, tee nuts, particle board screws, face frame screws, drywall screws, sheet metal screws, wafer head screws, self-tapping screws, screw cover caps, allen keys and many other special items produced according to customer requirements.

Chen Chi-hsiang, Zyh Yin chairman, says that in the past years his company has developed over 5,000 types of wooden furniture fastener and the number of is growing by over 50 new items per year. Chen says Zyh Yin is becoming a more and more important supplier in the international market thanks to its superior material, high quality and reasonable prices. Chen claims his company can out-compete Italian rivals on all three fronts.

Zyh Yin's long-term efforts have helped the company win orders from a growing number of international furniture makers for custom-made fasteners.

According to Chen, Zyh Yin has been constantly strengthening its fastener design and development capability to give furniture makers a wider choice of top-notch and innovative products. This strategy diverges from that of Zyh Yin's Italian competitors, which are focusing on a few standardized fasteners for mass production. Chen says Zyh Yin's more customer-oriented policy and reasonable pricing is winning it business.

Chen says that his company's international competitiveness is expected to continue growing for at least several years as rivals makers in mainland China still can not match his company on quality and Italian fasteners are far pricier than Zyh Yin's products.