TAIPEI: At the end of October, I had the opportunity to sit down with Walter Yeh, president and CEO of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), to discuss the current state of the Taiwan machine tool industry and the initiatives the industry is embracing as it endeavors to increase exports and become more competitive in the world market. Mr. Yeh says that for 2017, the Taiwan machine tool industry is on course to achieve 14 percent growth in exports. He attributes this to better business conditions in China as well as growth in the United States and Europe, which traditionally have been strong markets for Taiwan machine tools. Taiwan machine tool builders are also experiencing sales growth in Southeast Asia and Turkey.
The Taiwan government has deemed the machine tool industry to be of national strategic importance. As a result, it has supported an initiative to place Taiwan at the forefront of Industry 4.0 technology. Much of the machine tool builders’ efforts in this regard revolve around new machine tool control technology/human-machine interfaces (HMI), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-based production management, cloud-based preventive maintenance, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Modern Machine Shop Executive Editor Derek Korn recently encountered some of these highlights during his recent visit to the country, which he highlighted in this Twitter moment.
