Tai Sun Machinery Co., Ltd. has made its napkin making machines more efficient by combining packaging unit with folding machine and equipping them with PLC-based human-machine interface control system. The company has specialized in equipment for making tissue papers including napkins, paper towels, toilet paper, and wet paper towels since it was established in 1970.

The company's automatic napkin making machines can be operated by only one worker. "We introduced our automatic machine to meet a pressing customer demand," says company chairman T.L. Wang. His customers have also asked his company to build an automatic high-speed hankie towel production line, high-speed toilet paper roll/kitchen towel rewinding and perforating machines, and mini-size multi-folding wet paper towel production line.

The upgraded types of machines are very competitive against western counterpart models, delivering the same level of functionality at a lower price. The company claims that it has lured OEM orders from German suppliers.

Wang says that quality of his company's machines is apparent in the machines' smooth operation and consistent thickness of the packed folded papers. The company has achieved these high levels of performance, he says, by using high-end key components imported from Germany, the United States and Italy.

Wang expects that his company's improvement efforts will begin producing returns this year after three years of development work. "We expect automatic machines to boost our revenue rapidly since they command higher prices than do single-function machines," he says.

Backing this rosy expectation, he says, is a backlog of orders from mainland China that will keep his factory humming at full capacity through the end of this year. "Our sales have been building in the mainland market since the second half last year, leading to a growing concentration on that market," Wang says.

Although sales to the mainland are rising, Wang concedes that competition is getting tough there. Local mainland rivals, as well as competitors based in India and Turkey, are chipping away the company's allure to buyers in the lower market, while suppliers from industrially advanced countries are attacking the company in the higher-end automatic machine segment. "Some Western suppliers have introduced scaled down versions of their full-featured models to compete with us in the mainland," Wang says. Nevertheless, he is confident that his company has the advantage. "Western suppliers have expensive service charges and their head offices are far away from the mainland. Also, we do not have language gaps with mainland Chinese people," he explains. Wang says that his company has another edge in its two decades of experience in the mainland market--enough time to make Tai Sun a leading supplier of tissue paper making machines in the mainland.

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