Project Systems' Design Skills Sell Office and Household Furniture

To sidestep the tough competition in mass-produced furniture items, Taiwan's Project Systems Furniture Co., LTD. Began developing own-design aluminum-alloy system furniture with environmentally friendly and recyclable characteristics four years ago.

After years of intensive research and development, the company believes that it has accumulated the expertise it needs to offer a wide variety of furniture items that employ unique mechanical structures developed by the company itself.

Project Systems currently concentrates on making aluminum-alloy furniture with anodized surface treatment instead of powder coating. The company claims that anodized furniture provides better insulation characteristics and is thus suited to use in hospital wards and the clean rooms of semiconductor manufacturers.

The parts of the firm's furniture can be disassembled so that they can be discarded in different recycling categories.

The design capability of which the company is so proud is due mainly to its president, Alex Lee. His four-person design team uses 3D-graphics software to develop its unique furniture items.

"Taiwan has too many manufacturers that concentrate on panel furniture made of wood," Lee laments. "We decided to focus on aluminum-alloy furniture with unique structures to escape the intense competition caused by too many producers. And since the development of aluminum-alloy furniture depends on brain power and good design skills, we've not had any competition in the domestic market."

All-Out Promotion of Household Furniture

The company turns out both household and office furniture. Office furniture, including executive desks, public chairs, and display racks, still dominates the production lines at the firm's factory in Taishan, Taipei County, but Project Systems is now making an all-out effort to promote its newly designed "Casa IO" series of household furniture.

The company claims that it is one of only a few Taiwanese manufacturers that use anodizing surface treatment. The anodized aluminum-alloy legs of the "Casa IO" dining table are structurally stable and show no weld connections. The size of the legs can be adjusted to match the size of the table tops.

The use of aluminum alloy in the production of household furniture has become a worldwide trend, Lee comments: "In the past, most household consumers preferred to use items made of wood, glass, and fabric, but today more and more of them are welcoming items made of aluminum alloy because of their unique styling and design."

In addition to turning out furniture at his own Taiwan plant, Lee reports that he has also licensed the production of his own-design furniture to a Taiwanese-invested factory in mainland China.

The design capability of Project Systems was given tribute with its selection for recognition at the prestigious If design award. CHINA, sponsored by Hanover Fairs China Ltd. And held in Shanghai in 2003. The award was granted for the company's "A-Plus" furniture series, which also won a silver medal at the 11th ROC National Award of Excellence competition last year.

The If design award was created by Hanover Fairs International of Germany half a century ago, and the 2003 activity was the first ever to be held in China.

The "A-Plus" furniture series, the company explains, helps users to organize conference areas in dynamic, versatile, and totally innovative ways, with arc-curved and asymmetrical tables that can be arranged freely into almost any configuration.

Lee stresses that the "A-Plus" series is a continuously developing, highly competitive range of furniture that suits the needs of modern office space from executive suites to multiple and individual workstations, conference rooms, and reception areas, as well as of professional studios and home offices.