By陳仁義, April 9, 2018; Economic Daily News
China is always the largest export market for Taiwan's machinery industry. With the recovery of the global economic, it is expected that the China market will undergo a gradual recovery this year. Besides, some industries such as fuel automotives and electric vehicles are leading the recovery, while also promoting the demand for machinery production equipment. President Hsiao of Forwell stated that, the growing economy of China has driven the investment and construction, increasing the demands for machine tools, metal forming machines (i.e. punching machines, hydraulic presses), injection molding machines, industrial machinery, etc. It is observed that the development of large-scale and intelligent automation is the trend of the machinery industry.
President Hsiao pointed that in order to solve manpower issues as well as cost down demands, manufacturers in China and Taiwan adopt smart technology in their production lines. In Taiwan, many industrial insiders are pondering on the purchase of intelligent machinery due to the demand of the trend Industry 4.0. Among all the manufacturing facilities, the most critical type of machineries are equipment that can improve manufacturing procedure and productivity, while reduce the operation cost.
However, Hsiao expressed his concern that since the living costs in Taiwan and China are rising, together with the changed environment-protection regulations in China, many factories that cannot keep up with the changing regulations are forced to stop their operations, which leads to the imbalance of supply and demand in all the industrial sectors in China. In this atmosphere, the prices of construction, decoration, industrial materials, building materials, reinforcement, and other construction materials are rising continually. These factors affect people’s investment. Moreover, this situation also occurs in Taiwan. Companies in China and Taiwan have to cope with these issues and enhance their competitiveness via a series of improvement such as cost down, better manufacturing method, and being intelligent on their production in order to survive in the market.
However, as Forwell has set its Ningbo and Huaian plants as sustainable plans, Hsiao stated that he believes the annual revenues of these two manufacturing plants will have a growth rate around 10%. That is to say, making a long term plan for the operation is crucial for the sudden changes.
Forwell has been working in the sectors of mold and die transmission system (automatic mold and die cart), automatic mold and die warehousing system, and mold and die maintenance system for many years, offering convenient facilities for the industrial insiders. President Hsiao shared that he is now working for a new business development which is in line with the trend Industry 4.0. By offering the automatic warehousing system to the market, the purchase of automatic cart is growing every year at a stable pace.
Moreover, Forwell speeds up its operation schedule for the four business departments. Among the four, Hsiao has developed industrial robots for the material delivery, take out, shipment, and inspection for the metal forming and plastics injection sectors. It is expected that the development of FUDE robot will boost the technology level of Forwell and expand its product inventory.
