Chin Fong Machine: Innovator in metal forming

Taiwan-based Chin Fong Machine General Manager Simon Tseng along with his team, Vice Presidents Helen Fang and Frank Tsai, Executive Office Manager Steven Wang, and Overseas Sales Dept. Director Jason Lee sat down with INTERNATIONAL METALWORKING NEWS FOR ASIA sharing their views on innovation, and strategies in emerging markets. 

Keeping globalisation as its pace

Operating for 70 years, Chin Fong succeeds in establishing a variety of mechanical power presses. It has a number of specialised presses that are suitable for different industries and markets, as the capacity of the company’s products have reached the stage of sophistication. This solid foundation provided the company with all the requirements to expand their global presence.

In the year 1994, Chin Fong has set up a production centre in China, envisioning the importance of world factory. Following the shifts and changes of geography in the international trade, Chin Fong established branches and sales/service centres in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. And in 2017, the company set up its branch in Mexico in order to supply the Latin American customers locally.

“2018 will be the year that Chin Fong consolidates our global strategy. We are ready to use the successful experience from China, and elsewhere to bring it forward to the emerging markets” remarked Simon Tseng, general manager.

According to the market researches, it indicates that the demands in automobiles have saturated in the U.S., China and the EU. This message implies not a standstill in the overall demands in car markets. But that the new economies will jump to become the uppermost crucial regions in the future of cars manufacturing, said Chin Fong.

The company emphasised that being deeply involved in the ASEAN market since the late 1980s, they are looking forward to boost the presence in the region particularly that top auto suppliers of Japan, and China have located their factories there”, “We are also eying Middle East markets such as Iran, these are the regions that contain much potential for the new era automobile”, Simon Tseng added.

Symbolic technology to fuel new energy automotive

In the field of press manufacturers, integrating traditional technology to transforming manufacturing sector is the core issue manufacturers must confront especially at the time that the automobile industry is struck by disruptive technologies. Green vehicles that adopt light-weight techniques in manufacturing are attracting the spotlight, so as the trend of autonomous cars and shared economy that extends to the vehicle sector. In responding to these technological disruption, Chin Fong has succeeded in offering forming presses that are energy-efficient and economical in material consumption, while eliminating the need of post-processing.

“Chin Fong’s Knuckle-joint cold forging press is a compact version of press that blends in processes required for sheet metal forming. Diminishing the time and stages needed from the original processing thanks to its highly precise stamping capacity” the team explained.      

On the other hand, the company’s large-sized servo presses and hot forging presses are designed to meet definite requirements in processing high tension steels and component materials that are applied in renewable energy, light-weight vehicles.

“Contributing to the embedded sensors, smart monitor system, timely graphical stamping condition and statistics records, we were able to maximise the automation competency of the servo presses” the team stated. Via IoT, and high connectivity of the presses, the defect rate will be reduced as feedbacks of production information could be analysed and thus optimised to reach high accuracy. Chin Fong’s intelligent servo presses have also been installed at a smart factory demonstration plant in China.

Chin Fong’s role in the broader aspect of smart manufacturing sector

When asking about the expectation on Chin Fong amidst their 70th anniversary, the general manager and his team expressed a unified goal to make Industry 4.0 as the backbone for future developments. The editorial team further asked if the burgeoning shared economic model, (shared vehicle trend) challenges car ownership, and would this affect the overall sales of carmakers. Namely, what is Chin Fong’s role under the arrival of a shared economic model as well as driverless cars?

“We fully welcome the coming of a new style of transportation – whether it is autonomous car or electric cars,” said Simon Tseng. “In the future, the concept of transportation will change in all aspects, the question of vehicles as a commodity, or the ownership of it will not be the core issue, but rather it will be about the new service that people do on the wheels,” he commented.

Cars itself will become a platform of a new economic model. Therefore, for Chin Fong, sharpening their competency in software, and the capability to match production for carmakers of tomorrow becomes the urgent tasks while they embrace it with great confidence.

“Related to this new economic model, our president constantly stresses the goal of becoming a service-oriented press manufacturer” remarked the team. Very different from the image of a traditional mechanical press manufacturer, the aspiration of the company is dynamic and bold.

“As our presses and software systems keep upgrading and mature, we hope to head toward to a total-solution provider,” they stated.

Yet it is not without challenges. As the company stresses on highly customised presses, it has a relatively longer delivery than standardised press manufacturers.

“We recognise this as an issue to be dealt with, while we insist on the strategy of making customised presses for individual customers. In the next years we will thus explore more possibilities to shorten our delivery while maintaining this strength of designing original presses,” the team claimed. 

In the future roadmap of the company, readers will be able to anticipate innovative presses that process new types of sheet metals. They will also see stronger presence of Chin Fong in the emerging markets regarding services, and finally witness it to move towards becoming a 100-year-old company.

Direct Drive Servo Forging Press