In the middle of a sizzling summer, temperature exceeding 30 Celcius workers at Shinhan Diamond Industrial factory are sweating heavily and busy running machines.
President Mr. Song Byung is standing near the site explaining “We are manufacturing more than 200 different diamond tools for use in construction, precision and high-tech materials industries. “
Referred to as the Hidden-Champion, Shinhan Diamond Industrial is leading the market, with production capacity standing shoulder to shoulder with 5 major world competitors. This is especially the case for the precision department, since their competitiveness has come so far. Scriber tools for displays already took 53% in the global market as No.1, and diamond grinding tools takes up 25%, world’s No. 2 position.
Mr. Song says “Our Founder and Chairman Mr. Kim, Made Shinhan’s Vision Possible “
Shinhan Diamond Industrial started back in 1978 with only two strategies “becoming the world’s best in the diamond tool industry by investing in and focusing on R&D and increasing valuable production “.
His judgment proved its prudence in 1998 during Korea’s foreign exchange crisis; construction contracted in Korea, which resulted in shrinking its relevant market for construction materials and tools. Shinhan Diamond Industrial then turned to China and built a production facility at Qingdao in 2002, and was able to expand their Chinese market share.
They also made a score in revenue by diversifying an only-construction-tool portfolio with both LCD and PDP semiconductor fields.
Thanks to Mr. Kim’s vision, Shinhan Diamond Industrial has seen a continuous growth for years without any financial setback. Their total sales profit was recorded USD 42 million for 1992, in 2010, it shot up 332%m USD 140 million, and in 2011, around USD 270 million.
“Over 5% of overall profit goes directly to R&D” and “101 out of 391 of our dedicated employees are working hard for this purpose” Mr. Song says while adding that his company is a “Technology-Push “type with over 91 patents.
In 2009 they had a breakthrough when Shinhan Diamond Industrial successfully introduced scriber cutting tools that only few Japanese manufacturers had been able to produce. They are the cutting tools that have attached sharp micro-diamond edges on its wheel for cutting a display-use mirror with minute precision.
Staring 2011, they began to actively engage in LED, LCD and PDP related business, and product tests are underway with several partners. Mr. Song says “as to our product portfolio, we are planning to move from construction tools, dominating over 55% of our total sales, to high-tech products like semiconductor LED.”
“Each employee from our 15 departments wears a different uniform.” Mr. Song continues “competition is getting fierce between them based on our sales incentive program. “
President Song is carrying on his new mission while following Chairman Kim’s vision, and is restructuring his company organization for steady and continuous growth. He then applied his “Responsibility Management for Each Business Department” where each of the 15 departments is fully charged and runs like one independent company.
He says “we are celebrating the 7th year of our successful brand ARIX” and “now it is time for us to maximize its powerful potential in order to reach our future goal of USD one billion by 2015 and become world’s No.1 “
Their “Dream Technology“, ARIX(Automatic-Array System) contains multi-layer diamond segments, in which diamond particles are evenly distributed at certain distances between particles. This technology from ARIX improves the life of diamond tools and their cutting performance speed.
You can find more details at www.shinhandia.co.kr
Shinhan Diamond Ind has been selected as the KOTRA Seal of Excellence since 2010.
