Industry Activities 

by Dean Tseng, Fastener World

Fastener World Magazine had the honor to be invited again to Würth’s Supplier Day Event held at the Kaohsiung branch office on November 22. We interviewed executive vice president Thomas Klenk from the German headquarters and Andreas Dierolf, head of Taiwan branch office, for an exclusive scoop on the enormous business potential between Würth and Taiwan fastener supply chain.

Thomas and Andreas said in the joint interview that Würth has 400 branches across the globe and has worked with more than 120 Taiwanese suppliers up to this year. Würth provides high level and high quality fasteners that become a natural drive for the company to carefully select partners, and the reason that Taiwanese suppliers are the first choice for Würth is because they are highly-educated in technical know-how, trustworthy, producing reliable and high quality products. Taiwanese suppliers can offer small-batch, flexible and customized fastener production, and that is why Würth highly values this market.

Thomas indicated that quite a number of Taiwanese suppliers are already up to the quality standard of Germany, adding that the standard and service from certain Taiwanese suppliers are something that he could not even find in Germany. Würth has been working with Taiwan fastener supply chain since 1978. Around 6 years ago it set up a branch office in Kaohsiung with a Taiwanese R&D team serving as the communication channel between the headquarters and Taiwanese suppliers. Then, on the trade conflict between the U.S. and China, Thomas said the market uncertainty and increase in purchase costs have made Würth’s branches in the U.S. and China adjust their purchase or switch orders. Even so, he was very optimistic for the collaboration with Taiwanese suppliers starting 2019 and said to continue increasing purchase from Taiwan. He echoed his optimism by telling that the Kaohsiung office had expanded its R&D and purchase team from 10 to 16 people. Andreas said this branch office is to develop a unified testing equipment available for Taiwanese suppliers to reduce their development costs. Furthermore, a test report system developed by the branch office as part of the progression toward Industry 4.0 allows to put the suppliers’ test data into a database, through which customers can trace various data for a product.

This event starting 10 am was filled with suppliers from multiple countries that added up to around 280 people at the site. The event extending the whole day provided a perfect chance for all attendees to make the acquaintance and create positive partnership.