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Although Taiwan region of our country does not have significant advantages in terms of resources and markets, and its labor costs are high (an average of 10,000 yuan per person per month), its fiberglass and composite materials industry is thriving. Taiwanese fiber glass composite material companies assess the situation carefully and manage their businesses wisely. They formulate business strategies based on their own circumstances, while at the same time focusing on product applications, extending the industrial chain, and leveraging the advantages of vertical integration ； On the one hand, it strives for specialization and a high standard of quality, while also aiming for scale. South Asia/Formosa Plastics is a world-renowned large enterprise; starting out with PVC plastics, it has since expanded into oil refining and petrochemical production. To further expand its applications in the construction and electronics industries, the company has entered the field of composite materials, continuously improving its industrial chain, raising its standards, and expanding its scale. Its annual production of FRP doors and windows is 12,400 tons, with annual sales amounting to around 500 million yuan ； The annual production of glass fiber yarn is 90,000 tons, the annual output of electronic fabric is 300 million meters, the monthly production of copper-clad laminates (CCL) is 5 million square meters, and the monthly production of printed circuit boards (PCB) is 1.7 million square meters. Senhu Company is dedicated to developing the use of carbon fiber in sports equipment, and it currently has 5 factories with a production scale that is renowned worldwide. Its industrial chain includes fiberglass weaving, prepregs, epoxy resins, and fiberglass products, with an annual production capacity of 2 million bicycle parts, 750,000 tennis rackets, 2 million hockey sticks, 3 million baseball bats, and 2.4 million golf clubs. Although Meiming Company is a small composite materials firm focused on winding technology, it boasts a high level of equipment and continuously strives to improve its technologies. Meiming continuously leverages its advantages in technical equipment to expand the application scope of its products, strive for higher efficiency in them, and work toward systematizing its composite pipe and tank products. Their FRP precision reels and underground oil tanks are quite distinctive, and they undertake turnkey projects for entire gas stations. Dongrong Company is a manufacturer of SMC and BMC products; it boasts strong manufacturing capabilities and a commitment to continuous technological improvement. It produces FRP ceilings for cleanrooms using SMC sheets, each featuring circular upward vents that are 700 millimeters high. Thanks to its proprietary patented technologies as well as efficient and precise production methods, the company has managed to gain a foothold in the market. The cabinet panels it manufactures from BMC materials have also found their way into the Japanese market, where there are very high demands regarding product quality. Strong market adaptability is an important feature of Taiwan’s fiberglass industry. The fiberglass electronic yarns and electronic fabrics produced in Taiwan developed rapidly ahead of those in the Chinese mainland, enjoying significant influence in the global market. In recent years, fiberglass electronic yarns and electronic fabrics in the Chinese mainland have seen rapid expansion and improvement in quality. Due to the current downturn in the world economy, there is an oversupply in the markets for traditional fiberglass electronic yarn (G75 yarn) and electronic fabric (7628 fabric). In response to this, Taiwan’s electronic fabric companies have actively made adjustments. Jianrong Company is an electronic fabric manufacturer equipped with 400 weaving machines. It promptly invested 250 million New Taiwan dollars in technological upgrades to switch to producing thinner electronic fabrics, in order to meet the growing demand for thinner products in the copper-clad plate industry; currently, the business is operating well. Dehong Company has 2 electronic fabric weaving factories equipped with over 800 looms in total; to support its production needs, it acquired Daqiangson Fiberglass Factory. Amid the current market downturn during the restructuring process, the board of directors decided to suspend the plan to resume production at Johnson, which was under maintenance, and instead focus on improving the quality of electronic fabrics. Even if production volume has to be reduced, it is necessary to meet the needs of customers from CCL factories owned by Taiwanese investors in South China. Faced with the current sluggish economic situation, Taiwan’s fiberglass composite enterprises are responding to it in a positive and optimistic manner. They have flexible internationalization strategies, and enterprises in Taiwan have a strong capacity for internationalization. Regardless of their size, most of these companies’ products and services are targeted at international markets such as Asia and the United States, and they make active use of global resources while optimizing their own resources. Liangji Company is the largest specialized company in cooling towers in Asia. It strives to improve the performance of cooling towers, and in addition to offering a range of standardized products, it also continuously expands the variety of cooling towers available, such as high-efficiency, high-temperature, sealed, and low-noise types of cooling towers. They have factories and numerous sales service centers in the mainland, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, the United States, Malaysia, and other places, carefully organizing the vast market and optimizing resources. Most of their FRP and hardware components come from cost-effective factories on the mainland, where they are transported for assembly before being delivered to serve customers with cooling towers in Taiwan. As the cost factors on the mainland continue to rise, they plan to make better use of Vietnam’s low-cost resources. Qiaozi Company, which specializes in sound and heat insulation projects, purchases products such as glass fiber, high-silica fiber, heat-resistant acoustic aluminum silicate mats, and glass fiber cloth with high-temperature resistant coatings on the Chinese mainland. It carries out sound and heat insulation projects in Taiwan and the United States, and its business is growing steadily; currently, it plans to form a joint venture with a company on the Chinese mainland to establish a company in the United States. Due to the shortage of resources in Taiwan, its small and medium-sized enterprises are known for their frugal approach to business operations. These enterprises have few managers, occupy small areas, and provide simple working and living conditions without any form of extravagance. They also place great emphasis on industry coordination and the integration of industry, academia, and research. The Composite Materials Industry Association in Taiwan has over 200 members, giving it wide coverage and influence within Taiwan’s composite materials industry; it plays an important role in driving the development of this industry there. They actively organize external exchanges and collaborations within the industry; serving as a bridge to enterprises, they represent those companies in seeking policies. They also coordinate cooperation among related industries and help facilitate technical partnerships. The Nanomaterials and Chemical Engineering Institute of the Taiwan Institute of Industrial Technology collaborates with enterprises to develop products for the use of carbon fiber in bicycles as well as for geotechnical reinforcement, adjusting its research directions based on industry trends and advanced technical expertise. Currently, they plan to conduct research on composite materials in terms of nano-enhanced interfaces, as well as material selection and manufacturing processes for wind turbine blades. National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan is also actively involved in the research and development of composite materials. The development of composite material products is both the development of applications and the development of markets. Taiwan’s composite materials industry places emphasis on the development of new products, and its development experience is worth learning from. At present, Taiwan’s fiberglass composite materials industry focuses first on various new applications of FRP. There is a large market for the use of FRP in construction projects, but many technical issues need to be resolved. Eagle Company undertakes FRP construction projects by utilizing its patented FRP components – structural reinforcement members, reinforced steel structures, and structural grid trusses. Weishan Company has developed an anti-corrosion coating for steel pipe piles used in port projects, made from pultruded FRP profiles. Weishan Company developed protective covers for tram third rails, which are not only used in subways in Taiwan but also adopted in two overseas subway projects. Currently, both Weishan Company and Tongrong Company are actively producing FRP components for rail carriages. There are also precision industrial shaft rollers; FRP shaft rollers are lightweight and resistant to corrosion, but they must achieve sufficient precision, and both Meimin Company and Senhu Company are actively developing and mass-producing them. This article is from: China Epoxy Resin Network. Original link: http://www.epoxy-e.com/chinese/article/newsfile.asp?AL_ID=13023. Please keep this link when reproducing it; thank you!