The value chain of Taiwan’s metal products industry is largely concentrated in manufacturing, facing strong challenges from foreign companies, leading to declining market share and competitiveness internationally. Continuous outsourcing has also caused a crisis of industry hollowing out. Given the traditional metal products industry is categorized under 3K1Y (dangerous, environmentally unfriendly, laborious, and low-wage), it faces challenges in attracting high-level talent and experienced labor, leading to technological gaps and labor shortages. A greater challenge is that the Taiwanese metal products industry is mostly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with limited product innovation and design and an inability to invest in expensive smart equipment. The shortening product life cycles and increased demand for manufacturing flexibility add to the difficulties of global production adaptation. To enhance competitiveness, inherit industrial technology, and extend service markets, Taiwanese metal product manufacturers should actively adopt the new generation of ERP systems and smart manufacturing systems to save costs, reduce raw materials and work-in-progress, increase output, and better and effectively utilize existing resources as well as improve customer satisfaction, to reach new heights on the global stage.

With the increasing application of the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, the metal products industry is also actively incorporating smart manufacturing systems, utilizing new technologies in product design, supply chain management, equipment, processes, simulation, or service models to introduce comprehensive ERP solutions. This provides the power for rapid custom development, immediate response on the production line, and production predictability, establishing the industry’s ability to quickly respond to a diverse, small-volume, and varied market, and even achieve real-time quality monitoring and feedback correction technology during the process.

Coupled with the possibility of retrofitting lean production information platforms and production lines, the future could extend to production information dashboards, smart workstations, RFID tag production management, and other Industry 4.0 related technologies, achieving zero-switching for producing a variety of products. This allows a single production line to handle multiple product specifications, adjust production lines in response to product specification changes, and achieve the industrial benefit of reducing or zero component inventory.