Taiwan's Hand Tool Suppliers Co-organize a Digital-Tool Consortium

Taipei, Sept. 26, 2005 (CENS)--Five Taiwanese hand-tool suppliers have decided to co-organize a consortium to produce and market tools equipped with the unique electronic digital gauge developed by the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

The five manufacturers are Jun Kaung Industries Co., Ltd.; Redai Precision Tools Co., Ltd.; K&W Tools Co., Ltd.; Lucky Brand Industrial Co., Ltd.; and Ke Hung Industrial Co., Ltd. They will each put NT$1 million (US$30,000 at US$1:NT$33) into the joint venture to become its original shareholders. They plan to invite about 20 other manufacturers to join them to start a company by the end of this year.

Li Ming-hua, a project manager at ITRI's Mechanical Industry Research Laboratories, pointed out that his lab had transferred the digital-gauge technology to Redai and Ke Hung, which have already applied the gauges to their wrenches. The companies will commercialize the tools by the end of this year for the new company.

Li's organization is transferring the technology to suppliers of scissors, pullers and adjustable wrenches, and also plans to build the digital gauges into screwdrivers, air powered screwdrivers, and electrically powered screwdrivers in 2006.

Taiwanese tool suppliers noted that the printed circuit board of the laboratory's digital gauge is only one fourteenth the size of that found in imported gauges, while matching the precision of the imported products.

According to the MIRL, Taiwan's approximately 600 hand-tool suppliers export more than NT$70 billion (US$2.1 billion) worth of their wares a year, representing 21% of the world market and making the products Taiwan's largest category in the area of mechanical exports. The laboratory estimates that the Taiwan tool industry will gain NT$35 billion (US$1.06 billion) more in exports by 2009, when all of the island's tools will be equipped with digital gauges.

In June last year, the laboratory and the Taiwan Hand Tool Manufacturers' Association began promoting the formation of a digital-tool research and development group, which lured some 40 local manufacturers to join in.