Taiwan Proud Chair Justifies Name With Beauty Salon Furniture

Allen Chang, general manager of Taiwan Proud Chair Co., LTD. Has always said that the prime factor in the design of beauty-salon chairs is comfort, and his company has pursued that prime factor assiduously in the introduction of many unique, feature-laden products that are a cut above the competition.

Among the firm's proprietary products are a chair equipped with a massage device, a chair with metal armrests having removable plastic caps to insulate arms from cold armrests in cold seasons, and a chair with the faucet and switch positioned at its base in order to keep the noise of running water down. These products have been patented in Taiwan, mainland China, Europe, the United States, and Japan.

The development of the massaging chair, which Cheng claims is the first of its kind in Taiwan, was highly challenging. "The main challenge was that the massage rollers generated noise which echoed in the hollow base," the president explains. The noise was unacceptable to spa customers. "However," Cheng reports, "we overcame that problem with the chair's second generation." This chair, part of the company's EuroStar series, also has fluorescent lamps under the armrests to provide an avant-garde look.

The thought that Taiwan Proud Chair puts into its design is seen in the temperature-insulating removable armrest caps. Most salon owners prefer silver-colored metal for the armrests, Cheng notes, "But in the winter time, the armrests can become icy. So we designed the plastic caps to give the users greater comfort."

Faucet switches are normally positioned on the tops of the basins, which double as headrests as customers lie back on the chairs to get their hair washed. The water rushes through the switches with particular force, making noise that annoys customers who want peace and quiet. "So," the president says, "we fixed the mechanism to the base of the chair so that users can escape the noise." This reduced the sound to barely four decibels.

Ergonomic Design

The company designs its chairs on ergonomic principles, and to that end makes the body of the chair of glass fiber material. This material, Cheng notes, "is light and durable; and most importantly, it's so plastic that it can be formed to fit smoothly with the curve of the human body. " The glass-fiber body is cushioned with a sponge-like material. The footrests are separated from the chairs, unlike other products in which the footrests are normally attached; Cheng explains that his design was developed because sleepy users tend to trip over the part that connects the chair with the footrest. The neck pad is made of soft rubber instead of the hard plastic used by many suppliers.

In terms of ergonomics, Cheng comments, a salon chair is somewhere between an office automation chair and a dentist's chair. "An OA chair has only one point that supports the body, at the lumbar," he explains. "A dentist's chair has one and a half, at the waist and the head; the head support is not too significant, since the patient doesn't need to lie in the chair too long. But since customers usually lie in salon chairs for a long time, the waist and head supporting points have to be well designed."

For some newcomers, the growing emphasis on ergonomics constitutes a barrier to the industry. Cheng himself got into the business in 1985 and set up his own company four years later. "At that time," he recalls, "entry was easy since the chairs were simple and didn't have too many technical features. But early entrants like my company don't have much trouble with this, because we've adapted to the changing environment." A lot of furniture makers who try to diversify into salon furniture are defeated, he says, because of their lack of ergonomic know-how.

Not much study of salon-chair ergonomics has been done in Taiwan, so Cheng compensates by collecting information from foreign publications and carrying out his own studies. To develop his chairs, he uses computer-aided-design (CAD) software and has worked with a number of domestic designers.

Growing R&D Spending

Taiwan Proud Chair's R&D spending has equaled around 5% of revenue (which Cheng says has been rising 20% annually) for the past several years. Today, he says, "I'm not sure whether we're Taiwan's biggest supplier of salon chairs but I'm pretty sure that we're the only supplier in Taiwan that is able to develop innovative salon chairs."

Cheng claims that his company's design capability is not inferior to that of Western (most Italian) suppliers. Western buyers, however, have tended to equate Taiwan Proud Chair's products with those from mainland China, and have been demanding the same prices even as they concede that Cheng's chair designs are more attractive. However, he reports happily, "Despite their criticism, they eventually place orders with us."

Buyers today mostly prefer chairs that have white bodies and silver armrests, with dark cushions. "This is the kind now preferred by most salon and spa houses," Cheng explains, "because of its modernized look." The chairs consist mostly of plastic glass fiber, and metal, which means that their production costs have gone up along with the rising costs of metal and plastic materials.

Domestic sales have been affected appreciably by the rising cost of materials, and the company began pushing exports last year to make up. "After all," Cheng comments, "the domestic market is too small and there is no way that you can escape cost increases and other problems unless you develop overseas markets." Today the company's exports, mainly to Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Italy, and Japan, contribute 10% of revenue; for 2005 as a whole, Cheng predicts, the figure will be 25%. The company's chairs carry its own brand names, "Taiwan Proud Chair" at home and "Napa" overseas.