| dc.description.abstract | Starting in the 1970’s, OEM business rose and continuously flourished in Taiwan, which in turn accelerated the growth of material process industry. A particular process, stamping, became one of the emerging stars of manufacturing techniques. Stamping usually operates under normal temperature by using a press machinery and a set of tailor-made tools matching with die(mold) to shape materials via blanking, bending, forming, drawing or extruding so as to generate components with different characteristics and purposes. Stamping process is not only suitable for extremely high-volume productions but also adaptable to various applications. Therefore, lots of traditional components are products of stamping process. Besides, there are other merits in stamping process such as minimizing the weight, enhancing strength and rigidness of components and reducing the extra end-cutting process. Therefore, it is widely used and considered to be one of the most cost-effective methods of modern production techniques. However, the full development of stamping process induces such problems as labor-intensive, low entry-barrier and price sensitive, and consequently makes its market highly competitive.
In the past five years, labor shortage and up-soaring wages have become insurmountable hindrances especially for Taiwanese companies having factories operating in Mainland China. The aim of this study is to report a successful example of stamping factories in Mainland China maintaining competitiveness and surviving well through an in-depth research focusing on lowering the total labor cost of factory workers and employees. This case study is a live example of the factories the author now in charge of. The total investment of the example factories has cumulatively up to 32M$, and, in estimation, they will generate a noticeably total revenue of 600M RMB in 2020. Via actual experience and theoretical research, the followings are summarized as the major factors pushing us moving forward in competitive stamping world: enhancing core competitiveness of stamping technology, reforming the supply-chain structure, introducing automation under the guidelines of elimination, merging, re-arrangement and simplification, and upgrading the portfolio of employees by increasing their capacity of key know-how while decreasing the amount of ordinary employees through effective HR management. From our true and successful example, a combination of the above major factors will lead the way to survival and thriving in the competitive stamping world. | en_US |