GTEN Continues to Build Success in Industrialized Europe

Ball-screw maker actually participates in

Poised as Taiwan's most specialized manufacturer of rolled ball screws, GTEN Ball Screw Technology Co., Ltd. has made a name in the European market for achieving quality on a par to those made in industrialized nations. Since its founding in 2004, GTEN has been concentrating on the development and manufacture of high-precision rolled ball screws. Products made by GTEN meet the C5 class of the Japanese Industrial Standard.

After building a solid client base in Europe, the company is eagerly striving to further build presence in the North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and emerging markets.

Differing from most domestic manufacturers producing grinding ball screws to meet the needs of the machine-tool industry, GTEN, since its inception, has positioned itself as a specialized manufacturer of precision rolled ball screws by adhering to strict quality control management to boost production efficiency.

Market Distribution

The company exports 80% of its output, with Europe buying some 60%. And all GTEN's products meet European standards as DIN. Compared with peers, GTEN adopts stricter standards in production equipment and manufacturing processes. For instance, it uses a few more manufacturing processes than peers to achieve higher quality and reliability.

Despite ball screw manufacturing being viewed as a capital and technology-intensive sector, GTEN spares little effort to boost product quality by steadily investing in adoption of quality-control and precision-manufacturing equipment, a strategy that explains why the company has been able to achieve success in many industrialized European nations.

Leading With 20-year Expertise

GTEN has a 43,200 square feet factory in Taipei County, northern Taiwan. The company is captained by general manager Levite Lee who has over 20 years of manufacturing experience in developing grinding and rolled ball screws. Backed by a mechanical engineering degree from over two decades ago, Lee studied for a business management degree to raise the corporate management standards to global levels.

Grinding ball screws are mostly made-to-order while rolled ball screws can be mass-produced quickly to fill large volume orders. As Taiwan has only a few manufacturers focusing on the production of rolled ball screws, GTEN, since its founding, has tried to fill the void by setting up volume production of rolled ball screws.

Before founding GTEN, Lee had accumulated ample experience via working as president for a domestic firm specializing in the production of ball screws, a career that saw him once achieve 300% growth in sales in only five years.

Lee has shown his management expertise by expanding GTEN considerably over the past three years. Under Lee's leadership, GTEN has achieved outstanding performance over the past several years, with sales increasing annually. In fact, delivering highly reliable products has helped the company to achieve substantial growth in sales since the beginning of this year, despite the global economic slowdown.

All Customers Return

In only three years of operation, GTEN has achieved considerable customer base with all orders being repetitive, an achievement which Lee says is due to delivering high quality products on-time. The company claims some of its customers are well-known manufacturers of rolled ball screws in Western Europe.

The company boasts it is recognized as Taiwan's most specialized manufacturer of rolled ball screws with expertise in producing precision products regardless of product size and accuracy. The GTEN offers rolled ball screws ranging in external diameter from 6mm to 80mm. The company has delivered its longest rolled ball screws at 8.5 meters, which are installed in large-sized double-column milling machines.

Lee says GTEN products are reliable and very durable, as well as keeping extensive inventory. For instance, customers easily found replacement nuts made by GTEN four years ago to fit rolled ball screws.

To cope with price hike in steel, GTEN did something to reflect the rise in production costs. "We found customers understand well our price increases, knowing our move to reflect the rise in production costs, and know our high quality can help them achieve outstanding performance in the long-term," Lee states.

Designing Production Machinery

Over the past several years, the company has been upgrading production equipment and manufacturing skills, which helps to build brand recognition globally in the rolled ball screws market. GTEN's products are widely employed by the automation, semiconductor, integrated circuit, robotics, automotive, medical care, and solar-energy sectors.

Using a variety of machine tools as production equipment, GTEN has employed a spate of advanced production equipment to boost production efficiency and product precision. In fact, the company participates in developing such machine tools, from design to fabrication processes, to ensure application suitability in its factory.

Cooperation Between Industry and Academia

Believing well-trained staff is the most important corporate asset, Lee always tries to pass on management and manufacturing concepts to workers. Such strategy helps to better prepare GTEN's workers to assume more responsibilities while the company continues to grow rapidly.

To fully realize capacity in its workers, GTEN is engaged in a cooperative project with a college of technology, which has enabled the company to recruit valuable, well-trained workers from local technological and vocational schools. "The cooperative project is very successful because some of the workers hired from the college have filled promising positions in manufacturing and management," Lee says proudly.

To meet fast growth and a flood of orders, GTEN is planning to expand production capacity within the next two years, and says it will definitely keep its production base in Taiwan while keeping an eye on the international arena. The company aims to become one of the world's top professional manufacturers of precision ball screws in the five years to come.