R & D
The R&D capability of Fair Friend Machine Tools Division plays a significant role in the rapid growth of Fair Friend Machine Tools' market share. Each year, Fair Friend invested around 4% of its annual business volume in research and development. Furthermore, the R&D staff accounts for 30% of the total work force at Fair Friend Machine Tools Division. The R&D staff members are well educated, intensively trained, and highly competent. They are considered among the elite brain force of the entire machine tool industry in Taiwan. In addition, Fair Friend also cooperates with many technical institutes on many new development projects in order to maintain its technical competitiveness. In 1993, Fair Friend succeeded in the manufacturing system integration. Fair Friend developed the first Taiwanese Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS). The system was delivered to a well-known Taiwanese automobile manufacturer for one of its unmanned production line. Another system was delivered to a foreign mechanical institute for education purposes.