SHUTER Babbuza Dreamfactory is the world’s largest indoor tourism factory—located in a mountainside technology park in Nantou, Taiwan. The towering Tree of Life is the central feature of the factory, crafted entirely from the engineered wood. Visitors can rappel a 30- meter-high drop, whiz down a 100-meter zip line, and scale an indoor rock-climbing wall—all activities are rarely seen in tourism factories.
Babbuza Dreamfactory was built by SHUTER, Taiwan’s leading provider of home, office, and industrial storage products, at a cost of more than US$70 million. This manufacturing-tourism hub has won 12 international design awards for its innovative construction. It’s a “smart factory” harboring three green building technologies: a patented water circulation cooling system, a rainwater harvesting system, and solar photovoltaic technology. The factory is also home to the world’s largest automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), a 46-meter-high storage area with single-track and multi-vehicle systems. It is the embodiment of the successful digital transformation of a traditional enterprise that many decades-old Taiwanese companies are striving for.
(Image courtesy of SHUTER.)
Yira Wu, Chairman of SHUTER, consistently refuses to simply copy what others in the storage manufacturing sector are doing. By combining SHUTER’s unique brand voice with smart.
Yira Wu, Chairman of SHUTER, consistently refuses to simply copy what others in the storage manufacturing sector are doing. By combining SHUTER’s unique brand voice with smart manufacturing and green economy innovations, SHUTER Babbuza Dreamfactory was always destined to become a world-class complex. SHUTER strives to uphold environmentally friendly practices while bringing in tourism revenue and improving production technology and product competitiveness. It is challenging to achieve those goals simultaneously. After careful evaluation, SHUTER decided to adopt the simulation and smart management technologies pioneered by Moldex3D to deal with issues that arise at all stages—from design to manufacturing to shipping—and implement a knowledge management system.
“To realize the vision of becoming a world-class manufacturer, we need a world-class partner,” says Wu, “SHUTER and Moldex3D are both international brands that focus on technology development and environmental protection. Moldex3D helps us with product design validation and molding cost reduction.
“Moreover, iSLM, the cloud-based data management platform powered by Moldex3D, helps us store the valuable data we generate throughout the manufacturing process, significantly enhancing our production and resource efficiency.”
SHUTER’s storage products have been sold in more than 70 countries. Yet, this significant achievement is not enough for Wu. Today, he is focused on making SHUTER a green company in all aspects.
First, SHUTER adopted the Material Hub Cloud (MHC) developed by Moldex3D to enhance material selection efficiency and comprehensively evaluate material properties, reducing resource waste.
MHC Helps SHUTER to Improve Material Selection Efficiency.
The next issue to tackle was product design. Moldex3D is probably the most well-known for its plastic engineering simulation technology, which excels at predicting and providing solutions for dimension precision and surface defects—essential for storage products. SHUTER uses Moldex3D to validate product designs, optimize product quality and reduce production costs.
Systematic management of valuable molding knowledge and experiences is also a primary factor for traditional factories to successfully enter the digital era. Moldex3D’s iSLM is a big data platform tailored for the plastic molding industry. SHUTER used this technology to create a smart design data cloud for scientific mold trials. They built a cyber-physical environment for design, process, and production that accumulates design experiences and continuously upgrades the company’s competitiveness.
iSLM, the Big Data Management Platform Tailored for Mold Design.
Yira Wu is determined to “pioneer a model and create a legend.” He wants to see SHUTER products on store shelves and used in homes, offices, and workshops worldwide. Even more than that, he wants to share SHUTER’s unique brand culture of courage and action-taking with visitors to the Babbuza Dreamfactory. Choosing the right partners and tools is undeniably one of the company’s keys to success. “We look forward to future cooperation with Moldex3D so that we can create our own ‘smart era’ together,” Wu concludes.
