Taiwan's packaging machinery industry has been developed over the decades by local companies using skills and know-how learned from overseas, initially with the aim of replacing imports. The industry went on to become an exporter, and many companies in the line have built a reputation in the global market by using R&D and the division of labor to achieve flexible, efficient production and offer high-utility machines with stable quality.
According to Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI), the sector now consists of about 200 manufacturers, mostly small or medium in size and clustered in Taiwan's northern and central regions. Most of the machines they provide are small and medium-sized models for universal packaging, and are especially popular with professional buyers from Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.
Underselling competition by emerging rivals is the main threat to Taiwan's packaging machinery makers, especially those who are unable to upgrade their products because of limited resources. Some of the suppliers, however, have managed to develop higher-end models and explore new markets in an effort to maintain their competitive edge. Following are profiles of three Taiwanese suppliers that are finding innovative ways to beat the competition and achieve sustainable development.
Benison general manager Benker Liao stresses that his company is devoted to developing packaging materials and machines that can boost the global profile of Taiwan’s packaging industry.
Benison
Established in 1962 in Taoyuan County, northern Taiwan, Benison & Co. is a veteran supplier of shrink-packaging materials and machinery. It leads the sector with its superior technology.
At its inception the company produced spray hoses, shrinking tubes, and wiggery, expanding into shrink-packaging materials and machines in 1975. After decades of development, today the company is one of the largest suppliers in the line, with more than 200 workers in plants in Taiwan and another 100 in plants in the Philippines, China, and Thailand.
The company's product catalog covers a broad range of packaging materials such as polyolefin, OPP, PE, PVC, heat shrinkable labels, cap seals, and insulating tubes, as well as packaging machines like sealing machines, applicating machines, and customized packaging lines. Notably, Benison won the 5th Rising Star Award presented by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to recognize top-notch small and medium-sized enterprises which are competitive in exports and innovation.
Despite the industry's increasingly unfavorable competitive landscape, Benker Liao, Benison's general manager, insists that his company should stay rooted in Taiwan and keep contributing to the industry's development, saying, “Working out high-quality packaging materials and machines to make use of the industry's competitive advantages is my aspiration.”
The USA-005P (CE) Auto Side Sealer uses servo motors and has a maximum packaging speed of 400bpm.
To better compete against emerging rivals, Liao went on, Benison promotes different products in different markets to ensure the highest possible profitability. For example, the company targets Japan as the market for its high-quality packaging machines, and Europe for its label materials. The company operates factories in China and Southeast Asia to supply the local markets there.
It is well-honed technology, however, that underpins Benison's current success. Its technological achievements, Liao commented, are regularly introduced and demonstrated at technology exchange conferences that the company itself organizes at home each year.
“We hold such conferences trice a year, in the northern, central, and southern Taiwan regions, to present the packaging technologies that we and our partners have developed in line with market trends,” Liao explains. “This is costly, but we hope in this way to popularize our new technologies and give young people a clearer picture of the traditional manufacturing industry, which we believe can help the sector to further deepen its labor pool.”
At the conference held in early August at Hung Kuang University in the central Taiwan city of Taichung, Benison invited its Japanese partner Omori Machinery to cooperate in showcasing several eco-friendly packaging materials and advanced packaging machines, and in giving lectures about new technologies. A large number of industry insiders and experts, as well as college students, participated in the event.
Among the packaging machines that Benison demonstrated at the conference was the USA-005P Auto Side Sealer for shrink-wrapping. This machine has two 750W servo motors and two 25W induction motors, and features an improved graphic operator interface with 40 sets of memory modules and multilingual options, a CE-approved control system with easy expandability, an adjustable speed motor-incorporated feeding device compatible with printing sensors, a conveyor device with belts made of imported PU from Japan to meet food safety regulations, and a side sealing device. The temperature of the cutters, all of which are Teflon-coated for easy cleaning and maintenance, is kept constant by a solid state relay (SSR) controller, and timing belts are used for sealing stability. The machine can seal packs with height of 2mm to 140mm at a speed of up to 40 per minute.
The company stresses that side sealers enjoy a growing market compared to conventional L-sealers, because they offer higher material efficiency, more stable sealing, extendible packaging length, higher speed, and better quality.
Among the other hot items that the company showed off at the conference were white PETG (polyethylene terephthalate) shrinking sleeves, which Liao says feature high opacity, eco-friendliness, special sense of touch to enhance the added value of packaged products, and exceptional shrinkage. “In modern times,” Liao states, “packaging is increasingly required to be harmless to the environment, and so we have developed several green, value-added packaging materials to help the local packaging industry ride this trend. We also work constantly with capable foreign partners such as Omori on R&D in an effort to keep up with the newest concepts and technologies—and to make Benison stronger.”
For the future, Liao comments, his company will not just adapt to the market by keeping focused on the development of eco-friendly packaging materials, but will also try to fuel growth by exploring more emerging markets in Africa and Central and South America. “Benison is dedicated to boosting the global competitiveness of Taiwan's packaging industry,” Liao concludes.
Benison’s 2013 technology exchange conference in Taichung attracted a large number of industry insiders and experts.
Gold Great Good
In the religious belief that quality is the surest way to generate value for customers, Gold Great Good Machinery Co., Ltd. devotes itself to making high-quality, high-performance machines that can help clients sharpen their competitive edge.
A professional supplier of labeling machines that was founded in 1993 in the northern Taiwan county of Taoyuan, Gold Great Good has built up a solid reputation for supplying products of the highest quality and the fullest range of after-sales services, says its general manager, L.H. Tsai. The company's current product list includes servo-labeling machines, front and back labeling machines, eco-friendly labeling (OPP roll-reed labeling) machines, labeling machines for thermal-film bottle packaging, auto shrinkable label inserting machines, multifunctional two-sided labeling machines, and round bottle labeling machines.
Tsai emphasizes that to achieve exceptional quality and boost competitiveness, the company's R&D department is dedicated to the development of new labeling technology, expending considerable funds on innovation. One fruit of these efforts is a new 24-hour function that is offered as an option for the firm's automatic labeling machine, enhancing production efficiency to over 98%.
Tsai is proud of his hot-selling MD7000/6000/3000 series of automatic high-speed OPP/BOPP/Paper hot melt glue labeling machines, which feature 360-degree labeling with labels of OPP, BOPP and paper that can be applied to glass, plastic, and PET containers under 3,000 c.c.
To say that the company's strong commitment to quality has led to great success is not an overstatement. A number of the best-known companies in the world,, such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, P&G, Unilever, Quaker, Uni-President (Taiwan's largest food and beverage supplier and owner of the island's biggest convenience store chain), and Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor (a Taiwanese state-owned liquor producer) are on Gold Great Good's customer list. The labels of nearly 99% of all domestic bottled mineral water are affixed by machines from Gold Great Good.
As a further proof of its dominant presence in the line, Tsai reports that his company has decided to expand its existing plant to 1,600 square meters and triple its production capacity in response to the steady growth in orders.
Gold Great Good’s MD-5800-OPP auto shrinkable label inserting machine.
The MD-5000-OPP automatic high-speed OPP hot melt glue labeling machine is also from Gold Great Good.
Tru-Brite
Fully understanding that the regular release of new machine models not only attests to its cutting-edge technology but also effectively attracts the attention of international buyers, Tru-Brite Machinery Co., Ltd., a manufacturer of rewinding machines that was founded in New Taipei City, northern Taiwan in 1998, is committed to R&D as a means of maintaining competitiveness in the market.
The company supplies a wide-ranging lineup of rewinding machines, including automatic cling film rewinders, automatic aluminum foil rewinders, semi-automatic cling film slitting rewinders, and semi-automatic aluminum foil and cling film rewinders. The company exports 95% of its machines, mostly to the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Tru-Brite president Y.C. Wu comments that his company spares no effort on R&D, continuously designing and improving its products to meet the market trend toward rewinding machines that offer high performance, high efficiency, and great functionality, and do not need large amounts of manpower. This is the strategy that sustains the company's growth.
One of the firm's premier products is the Six-shaft Automatic Aluminum Foil and Cling Film Rewinder coupled with Automatic Rewinding & Shrinking Film Packaging Machine, an integrated packaging line that embodies the company's strong R&D capability. Wu notes that at the front of the packaging line, which incorporates a Nordosn's hot melt module, an improved labeling system, and a hot-air system, is the AH-6S automatic rewinding machine, while an automatic packaging machine is used for back-end production.
Tru-Brite claims that its Six-shaft Automatic Aluminum Foil and Cling Film Rewinder coupled with Automatic Rewinding & Shrinking Film Packaging Machine is Taiwan’s first homegrown packaging line of its kind.
Tru-Brite focuses its efforts on the development and manufacture of cling film and aluminum foil packaging machines.
Finished rolls are carried on by a roller conveyor from the re-reeling machine to the wrapping station. BOPP, OPP, or PE can be chosen as the shrinkable film material for wrapping. Thanks to the static charge of the film and a curling tendency that matches the surface of products to be packed, the machine assures excellent adherence between films and packaged products. This, Wu emphasizes, is Taiwan's first homegrown model of its kind, and it needs the least manpower to operate.
Another new model that the company launched this year is an automatic shrinking film reel packaging line which includes an automatic reeling machine, packaging machine, hot-air system, and paper box cutting machine. This line, Wu explains, replaces traditional paper packaging lines and features greatly enhanced efficiency.
Regular participation in professional trade fairs worldwide, Wu says, is the most effective way to enhance his company's global presence and boost exposure of its name and latest machine models among global buyers. So far this year the company has already taken part in Arabplast in Dubai, Plast Imagen Mexico, and Malaysia International Rubber, Plastic, Mould And Die Industry Technology Exhibition. It will also attend Myanmar Plas, slated for Nov. 11-18 at the Myanmar Convention Center.
