Taiwan-based tooling machinery company Kao Ming says its ‘customer-first’ philosophy has led to continuous research and development (R&D) of new products, which has also triggered its market growth in the US, Germany and China in recent years.
Supplying and manufacturing tooling machines for the automotive and aerospace industries in the US, Kao Ming special assistant Johnny Huang notes that the market demand in the US has resulted in the company producing high-torque and high-horsepower machines for the respective industries.
“For the German market, the products are customised and are requested to be of a high quality to serve the automotive industry efficiently. “This has meant that a lot of R&D has to be emphasised when producing for our customers,” he indicates.
For the Chinese market, Kao Ming produces large models of double-column machining centres, such as gantry and moving cross-beam machines. These machines are used across different industries within the market.
Supplying these three markets has led to our having to create a supply chain system that allows for stable quality and faster lead times in our manufacturing process, Huang mentions.
Owing to this, he adds, the need to offer more flexible and a greater variety of products, such as five-axis head machines, has become greater with time. Also, improving existing products to ensure their reliability and stability has remained a priority for the company.
Last year, Kao Ming sold more than 6 000 sets of double-column machining centres in its US, Germany and China regions, including other emerging regions. Huang believes that this is because the company offers customised services and interaction with customers, based on the kind of services they would like the company to offer.
“Our R&D engineers visit our customers regularly to find out if they have any concerns about the products we supply and enquire if they would like to see an improvement on any of our product offerings. “This enables our team to design and develop machines that are in demand and products that are specific to customer needs,” he states.
Huang says that, this year, the company aims to penetrate more regions with its product offerings to grow business and expand into other industries.