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Industry Profile
Efficiencies of Scale
With 4,000 products and counting, ACS is a fully integrated company
offering high quality, low prices and flexible service.
D&WC:
Please give a detailed description of your company
and its history.
Danny Hsieh, president: Advanced Component Specialists
(ACS) began in the late 1970s as a manufacturer of vertical blind
components. Initially, ACS was just a small company with a handful
of workers with manufacturing in Taiwan.
As the founder of the company, I was the only sales representative
at the time, and ACS specialized in a small range of products. Over
the last 20 years, ACS has grown to become a large supplier of parts
and machinery for the window coverings industry.
In early 1991, ACS moved its entire production facilities from Taiwan
to Shanghai, China. Construction of a new 100,000-sqiare-foot manufacturing
facility was completed during the summer of 2000. ACS moved into
our current U.S. headquarters in Covina, CA, in 2002 and we maintain
additional offices in Taiwan.
Currently ACS offers more than 4,000 products from the smallest
parts to the largest machines and has more than 700 employees located
in the United States, China and Taiwan with warehouses in Covina
and Houston, TX, to serve our North American customers.
D&WC: What window coverings products did you handle
initially? What products do you handle today?
Hsieh: Initially ACS handled a small number of products
concentrating on vertical blind components. With the tremendous
growth over the last 20 years ACS has expanded its product offerings
across many product categories from vertical and horizontal blinds
to Roman, roller and cellular shades; wood and faux wood slats;
and fabrication machinery including slat punch and headrail punch
machines. With more than 4,000 products, ACS has at least one component
in any window covering category.
As our product offerings have changed, ACS as a company has changed.
When ACS began we were strictly a distributor, but over the last
20 years we have evolved into a vertically integrated company with
the ability to design and optimize new products, manufacture these
products at high volume to provide the best price to our customers,
distribute products across multiple markets and countries, and meet
the changing needs of our customers.
In 2003, ACS acquired Travis American to expand our wood blind component
products. The Travis American acquisition will complement our production
of flow coat wood slats in China resulting in a higher quality product
while allowing us to lower the price.
D&WC: Where do you see
yourself and your company five years from now? Are there additional
areas within the industry that you would like to get involved in?
Hsieh: Over the next several
years ACS will continue to provide a wide range of products to the
window coverings industry.
We see growth within our core industries over the next several years
and with the purchase of Travis American in April, ACS will expand
our capacity and production of wood slats and shutter components
in the United States. This acquisition fits nicely within the current
ACS product offerings and will also allow us to expand into the
area of window shutter components.
D&WC: What best describes
your niche in the marketplace?
Hsieh: ACS wants to become the
Wal-Mart of the window coverings industry with a huge diversity
of product offerings at high quality and low price.
While not occupying a specific niche within the marketplace, ACS
strives to provide products to our customers who occupy every niche
within the marketplace.
D&WC: What are some of the key factors involved
in your growth and success?
Hsieh: Part of the success of
ACS is that it has manufacturing plants in China. This plant runs
24 hours a day, seven days a week. The manufacturing in China is
integrated tightly on a daily basis with the American headquarters,
and the size of the ACS production facilities allow efficiencies
of scale to be passed on to the customer in the form of lower prices.
The high integration between the United States, Taiwan and China
offices provides flexibility to allow for rapid changes in production
schedules to meet the needs of our customers.
D&WC: What are your strengths in the marketplace?
Hsieh: ACS has achieved a fully
integrated part conception, optimization and production process
for thousands of different parts to meet our customers’ every
need.
ACS starts with product conception, reduction to layout and analytical
design to generate a theoretically optimal product. Based on this
design and analysis, ACS uses mold fabrication by state-of-the-art
laser blade technology to prepare an initial component. These components
then go through a rigorous product and material optimization. Necessary
changes are made to the design and when an optimal part has been
created, then timely high-volume part production is initiated. Control
of every step of the production process is important to ACS and
we have taken measures to insure that each step is optimal.
D&WC: What advice would you
give to other window coverings professionals?
Hsieh: Don’t be afraid of change. As technology
has revolutionized many industries it also will have a major impact
on the window coverings industry. The key is to remain flexible
to changes and to adapt with the changing technology.
New products and designs will revolutionize the way we think about
our industry over the next 20 years and to survive and succeed we
wish either to lead the industry or to adapt to changes as quickly
as possible.
D&WC: What distinguishes you
from the competition?
Hsieh: Because we manufacture
and fabricate a vast majority of our products we have good quality
control, low-cost production and the ability to respond quickly
to our customers’ buying patterns.
In addition, huge inventory in our two warehouses means our customers
can get their products faster with ACS.
D&WC: Do you work through distributors
or sell direct to the retailer?
Hsieh: ACS works closely with our customers to provide
additional information and training regarding specific products.
To increase general awareness of our product offerings and pricing,
ACS has begun a bi-weekly advertisement of specials called the “ACS
Buy-Weekly Special” and a “Value Voucher Program”
to earn free products.
Special pricing on several ACS products is available in each issue
and purchase of products in the bi-weekly specials earns “Value
Voucher Dollars” for the purchase of any ACS product.
Advanced Component Specialists, Inc. (ACS)
755 Arrow Grand Circle
Covina, CA 91722
(626) 966-5608
(800) 255-9688
fax: (626) 966-5075
e-mail: acsinfo@acsmart.com
www.acsmart.com
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