Reporting a 34% revenue increase year on year in 2012 and expecting sales for the second half of 2013 to climb from the flat first half, L&L Machinery Industry Co., Ltd., a leading heavy-duty-lathe maker in Taiwan, is moving in a new direction that departs from what it had comfortably accustomed to before the 2008 economic downturn.
An industrial engineering and management lecturer at the National Chin-Yi University of Technology and a mechanical engineering lecturer at Hsiuping University of Science and Technology, General Manger George Lin is the engineer behind the redirection scheme of the 1991-founded company.
George Lin is leading L&L in new direction towards reinvigoration.
“Before the 2008 downturn, the market was quite strong and you just made what you thought to be marketable and the market would never let you down as a result. But when the market began trending down after 2008, we have begun since 2011 working with our dealers to develop solutions according to the specifications proposed by lathe users, not by our own idea. The solutions mostly address how our systems and service can best help the users maximize their output efficiency,” Lin stresses.
Making machines for producing heavy equipment used in oil-exploration, mining, shaft, mold, power-utility, and roller industries, the company is among the sectors of equipment industry that last feel market downtrend, according to Lin. “We did not make the change in the first place when the global economic downturn happened because we did feel immediate recession. Actually, the apparent decrease in our orders happened towards 2010,” Lin recalls.
The company's cooperation with dealers on supply projects for the users now begins upon signing dealership contracts, an attitude which Lin labels as “proactive”. “Dealers are more knowledgeable about market trend than us because they contact with the users directly through supply services. So, they are a good source of intelligence about user preferences,” Lin says. His company has set up a global dealership network covering major markets as North America, South America, West Europe, East Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, mainland China and Southeast Asia.
From dealers and its studies, L&L has learned that oil explorers “are like nomads roaming about for pasture”, and that they are now tapping the deposits deep under North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and South China Sea after exploring terrestrial surface and the layers along coasts. “With the location shifts, their needs for jigs and fixtures for making their equipment change,” Lin notes “We did not much work with dealers and do market study before the financial crisis because at that time the demand was so strong that you quickly sold out whatever you made. But thing has changed dramatically since 2008. So, you have to struggle identifying where the demand is and we have started studying the market with dealers,” Lin says. CNC lathes for making energy-exploration equipment account for nearly half of the company's revenue, leaving the rest filled by machines are used in mining, shaft, mold, power-utility, and roller industries.
LS series from L&L is for for boring, drilling, facing and internally threading workpieces.
LL950 is the flagship model of L&L’s LL series of machines.
What Lin's company has also learned is why its international competitors, namely Japanese manufacturers, always equip bed-type lathes for boring 10-meter exploration-equipment pipe with a 20-meter bed and design the bed into two pieces.
“The additional 10 meter is for conveniently loading and unloading the 10-meter workpiece and two-piece design is for saving occupancy space in a shipping container. We ignored that when market was strong. And our competitors are certainly not generous to share with us what they know about the upside of the additional 10-meter bed. But when market cycles down, buyers are cautious about shipment cost and prefer to buy two-piece designs,” he says.
Making machines for producing oil-exploration equipment promises the company with higher value than machines for making oil pipelines and oil drilling equipment, Lin stresses. “Oil-exploration technologies are still evolving whereas drilling and pipeline technologies are already matured. That's why competition in pipeline and drilling equipment market is growingly crowded,” he elaborates.
Entering oil-exploration equipment market is not without challenge. To enter the international market, the company has won CE ISO13849 and ISO 9001:2008.
The general manager especially underscores service and innovation aspects of manufacturing in the company's new direction. “We care about our customers' different need, but not their individual need, or what people say tailor-made need. Instead, we address the need of different segments of an industry. Each segment has something in common and we deal with that,” he stresses.
The company's service, including whole-plant planning and after-sale service, extends from the very beginning of a deal with dealers to machine users, Lin stresses.
If the company fails to make the change, it, Lin thinks, will lose customers although not all. “The result of the competition in the industry can not be clearly divided into ‘one' and ‘zero', but you will surely move farther and farther away from ‘one' and closer to ‘zero' if you still keep the mindset ‘take it or lump it' towards buyers,” he says.
To cater to customers pursuing quality machines at less expensive cost, the company has introduced several advantageous equipment as LS series of large CNC turret lathes and LL series of five-bed way heavy-duty CNC lathes. The LS series is for boring, drilling, facing and internally threading workpieces while LL series is for turning, boring and milling long shafts and hollow tubes.
Not to mention high performance efficiency, LS features ball screw in the center of bed ways, rigid H6-450-servo turret, completely covered telescopic covers for all bed ways , extraordinary power for boring and drilling, super large spindle bore for workpiece through spindle, double chuck, fully enclosed guarding, well protected ball screws and nuts, easy and thorough removal of chips, positioning accuracy, and permanently precision drilling diameter and straightness.
LL is for large and long workpieces thanks to overcoming the interference between the carriage and steady rests. This series is as rigid as flat bed lathes and as efficient as slant-bed lathes. Also, it is equipped with C axis rotating around Z axis, with C controlled by spindle servo motor. This series is capable of machining workpieces ranging from three meters to 20 meters in length.
The flagship model of the LL series, LL950 is an outcome of the cooperation between L&L and Hsiuping University of Science and Technology. Designed to machine workpieces three meters to 10 meters long, LL950 features a 3D dynamic graphic software installed in control unit co-developed by the two organizations, an improvement from 2D graphic software.
In addition to Hsiuping, the company also works with Chin-yi and Asia University in central Taiwan on advanced-technology R&D projects and cooperate apprenticeships. With the cooperation, the company has cultivated machinery brainpower for itself and trained the specialists for these schools. In fiscal 2012, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) chose the company as “a demonstration factory for cultivating industrial talents” to mark the positive effect of the company's cooperation with these schools in cultivating machinery specialists for Taiwan's industries. Furthermore, the ministry has funded the company with the Small Business Innovation Research fund for its brilliant R&D work on innovative technologies.