Bike Maker Sanfa Invests Million in New Taiwan Facility

TAICHUNG, Taiwan – It’s state-of-the art equipped with the latest technologies in painting and wheelbuilding and costed over 10 million US dollars. It’s the new Sanfa bike production facility being constructed on one of the new industrial estates outside of Taichung and which starts operations next April.

Sanfa (Taiwan) Bicycle Industrial Co. Ltd. is an OEM maker founded about 40 years ago and is currently located in the city center of Taichung. Here entry to mid level bikes are produced for companies like Decathlon, Scott, Mercedes-Benz, Felt and others.

Sanfa also runs a Chinese subsidiary located in Guanzhou where alloy and steel frames are manufactured. The company is specialized in welding alloy 6000 and 7000 frames and produces some 200,000 annually. Here also about a quarter of a million steel frames (hi-ten steel as well as chromoly) are made per year. At this Sanfa (Guanzhou) sporting goods Co. Ltd is a R&D team assisting OE costumers with their frame drawings as well as prototyping with CNC machines and 3D printers. The Chinese frame factory is equipped with a painting installation.

With the new facility in Taichung Sanfa is targeting OE customers in Europe with mid and hi-end Trekking, road race and MTB models. As said it offers the latest technology in painting as well as wheelbuilding. The painting installation has the possibility to spray liquid and water-based paints as well as powder coatings with infra-red curing/drying. This is contributing to a more efficient paint process as the drying time of the paint is reduced by 70% to only about one hour. The stat-of-art paint facility comes from Europe; made by Remberg – Gema.

Sanfa’s new facilty will have a workforce of about 150 – 200 and comes with 2 fully automated Shuz Tung wheelbuilding lines as well as one for hand made wheelsets. With the new facility Sanfa is able to meet all current regulations like CPSIA from the US and REACH as well as CEN standards from Europe. According to the company’s spokesman: “Our new facility will contribute to Sanfa’s reputation as a competent and competitive OE maker with stable quality, a stable workforce and stable lead times.” Sanfa is exhibiting at Taipei Cycle and is at booth N405.