Since its inception in March 1983 at Taishan, Guangdong province in China, the Kam Kiu Aluminium Group has achieved 22 years development in 2005. Over these two decades, Kam Kiu has experienced robust growth of its aluminum extrusion operation in Taishan where its main office building is located. The headquarters of Kam Kiu are in Kowloon, Hong Kong, a short distance from Taishan. The total volume of extrusion product at Kam Kiu in 2003 was about 43,000 metric tons and reached to 53,000 metric tons in 2004. Kam Kiu has been ranked among the largest extrusion plant in China for several years. The Group’s extrusion products are now extensively used in the building and construction industry, transportation, electronics, industrial and durable consuming goods, as well as in other fields

Currently, Kamkiu, asa global aluminum group, has more than 2500 staffs. It contributes itself to cansting, die cutting, extrusion and surface finish such as powder coating, wet painting, anodizing and etc. The Kam Kiu aluminum extrusion operations in Taishan occupy a site area of 389,000 square meters with 190,000 square meters of plant floor area.

‘KAP’, the brand of Kamkiu in the world, is not only well known in China, but also famous in Asia,German, Japan, Austria where our 80% products are sold. Kamkiu is the biggest aluminum exporter. Its saling quantity is up to 18.900MT at the first eight months of 2005, amounting to 7.39% of the total exporting quantity in China.

Right after the “2005 China Aluminum Forum” in December 2005, Light Metal Age was invited to visit Kam Kiu Aluminum Group and meet with Mr. Ken Lei, chairman and CEO of the Group. In 1999, Mr. Ken Lei was granted the Hong Kong Young Industrialist Award in for his outstanding contribution to Hong Kong’s economy and success in enterprise management, making him the first winner of this award in the Chinese aluminum extrusion industry. As a successful private extrusion enterpreneur in China, Mr. Ken Lei (Figure 3) looked back and mused about the secret to success in the extrusion business in general and Kam Kiu’s success in particular. He said, “Kam Kiu’s development and success relies on the presence of our constructive corporate culture and the productive team spirit among our management and staff. Kam Kiu Group’s success is based on our core values, which are: People are our assets, Quality is our cornerstone, and Good Reputation is our value. We continuously strive to provide premium product and service to our customers.”

History and Milestones of Development

Taishanis a small Chinese city, locating in Guangdong province, China, which is 140 kilometers west of Hong Kong, 100 kilometers southwest of Guanzhou, or 80 kilometers west of Macau. It lies along the Guangdong province coastline on the southwest corner of the Pearl River Delta area bordering the South China Sea

Kam Kiu was originally established as a casting plant in 1983 at Taishan . It was equipped with a simple 50 kg casting furnace and small casting line used to produce and cast non-ferrous alloys. With improvements in its casting facilities, Kam Kiu started producing aluminum billets in 1984. In 1989, Kam Kiu established its regional headquarters in Hong Kong to develop overseas markets for the sale of a variety of cast aluminum and non-ferrous alloys

In 1991, Kam Kiu built its own extrusion plant and started to produce aluminum extrusion products. Meanwhile, several anodizing lines were installed. With these facilities, Kam Kiu succeeded in introducing quality aluminum extrusion products to Hong Kong’s building and construction industry in 1992. In that same year, Kam Kiu’s first overseas office was set up in Australia to develop the Australasian market.

In 1993, Kam Kiu established a fabrication plant to manufacture value-added aluminum products such as aluminum doors, windows, and accordion sliding doors. In order to develop the Southeast Asian market, Kam Kiu also opened an office in Singapore in the same year.

Thanks to the continuous improvement of product quality, Kamkiu was awarded with ISO-9002 qualty certification in 1995, making it as the first Asia-pacific aluminum extrusion company that earn such international honor. Several powder coating lines and wet painting lines are added to further improve service in the same year. Then, in 1999, Kam Kiu successfully passed the Det Norske Veritas (DNV) product quality certification. Also in 1999, Kam Kiu opened offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen in China, as well as in Canada. By the way, North America will become one of our major market in future.

Stepping into the new century, Kamkiu continuously introduces new equipment to meet the increasing need of growing market, such as the seamless tube, drawn tube and etc. In 2000,2002, Kamkiu develops its own brand-‘KAP’, and successfully entered into the market of Europe and Japan.

In 2003, Kam Kiu fully fully carry out the plan of computerization with the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) management system, by which customers would be able to track their orders online through “KamStar” software. In the same year, Kam Kiu was honored with “Top Ten China Aluminum Extruder” and “Guangdong Renowned Enterprise” awards, and in 2004 Kam Kiu also was presented with the “China Renowned Enterprise” award

During 2004 and 2005, Kamkiu experience great development. It has invested a large number of money to import new advanced machine, technology and management skill .These greatly improve quality and diversification of product. Besides, it also pays attention on the improvement of management, service quality and brand to better meet intense competition In 2004, Kamkiu imported 4 extrusion press from UBE in Japan, among which the biggest is 6180MT. Thus, Kamkiu is the only enterprise that can produce such kind of product. Furthermore, in 2005, Kam Kiu had signed a contract with SMS Eumuco GmbH to acquire four indirect double acting extrusion presses from SMS (Figure 5), two of them at 2800 US ton and the other two at 1000 US ton capacity, which will be used to produce high precision structural tubes and seamless tubesin soft and hard aluminum alloys.

Kamkiu is committing itself to apply for TS16949 certification that is quality management system mainly for automobile. By then, Kamkiu will become the only one extrusion plant that can provide products for automotive and aerospace industry.

Kam Kiu Group Nowaday

Currently, Kamkiu covers total sites of 389,000 square meters, consisting of separating plants laying out as follows:

• Melting and Casting Plant
• Extrusion Plants #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5
• Fabrication Plant
• Wet Painting Plant
• Powder Coating Plant
• Anodizing Plant
• Brite-Dip and Buffing Plant
• Die Shop
• Laboratory Center
• Two Warehouses.

Melting and Casting: T Casting plant is equipped with 9 melting furnaces, among which 4 presses are 40MT and 2 20MT are used to common alloy, while the left three 20MT press are installed with magnetic stirrer to deal with special alloy.

Kam Kiu uses prime Western 99.7% aluminum to alloy and internal scrap to cast its extrusion billets. In order to ensure alloy consistency, we cast billets in-house without the addition of purchase scrap or recycled aluminum material and use in-line degassing and purification to control hydrogen levels in aluminum billets to less than 0.2 ml/100g To enhance quality, the plant is also armed with two computerized optical spectrum analyzers for analyzing chemical composition of incoming raw materials and the billets we produce and an ultrasonic billet inspection system. Six 40 metric ton homogenization furnaces operate in tandem to supply billet to its five extrusion plants. With our state-of-the-art billet casting facility, we can produce high quality 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 6000 and 7000 series billets. We are also able to custom produce a wide range of aluminum alloys to suit the special needs and down-stream products of our customers.

Extrusion: Kam Kiu customizes aluminum extrusions in accordance with customer designs. Specially tooled precision dies are made in-house to extrude the desired shapes. We extrude 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 6000 as well as 7000 series alloys to meet specific requirements of customers. We also produce drawn and seamless aluminum tubes of various sizes for applications requiring high tensile strength and close tolerance. With our cellular manufacturing environment and constant equipment upgrades, Kam Kiu has established itself as a leading integrated aluminum extruder in Asia.

As one of the biggest extruders in Asia , Kam Kiu is with an extrusion production capacity of 150,000 metric tons per year. It currently has a total of 26 extrusion presses distributed within our five extrusion plants. The extrusion presses range from 6180 US tons to 550 US tons, including one UBE 6180 US ton press, one UBE 3680 US ton press, two UBE 2800 US ton presses, four 2500 US ton presses, two 1800 US ton presses, four 1100 US ton presses, six 880 US ton presses and six 550 US ton presses. The four advanced UBE extrusion presses, including the 6180 ton press shown in Figure 4 have been put in production in 2004. Aluminum billet diameters for these extrusion presses range from 406 mm (16 inch) to 88 mm (3.5 inch). The UBE 6180 US ton press can produce aluminum profiles of up to 540 mm (21.3 inch) circle size.

All of the new extrusion production lines at Kam Kiu are equipped with highly efficient double pullers from Granco Clark (Figure 9), tapered induction billet heaters from IAS (Figure 10), plus Novatec’s multichamber infrared die ovens (Figure 11). With the intelligent control system, press ram speed is adjusted to achieve isothermal extrusion conditions.

·Upgraded and added new casting furnaces to support its extrusion billet quality program
Added new standard operating procedures and process steps to guarantee traceability, accountability and repeatability
Added in-line testing using ultrasonic, eddy current, and other quality testing procedures
Added new state-of-the-art extrusion presses with matching quenching and handling equipment that will provide Kam Kiu with the ability to produce larger and wider shapes die and improve dimensional tolerance and grain structure
Added UG 3D software to advance the manufacture of extrusion dies on state-of-the-art CNC machine centers

Kam Kiu has contributed itself to the design and development stages with key automotive customers. It has been involved in design and capability discussions with automotive customers regarding extrusions for braking systems, instrument panels, and bumper systems. Among the automotive applications that Kam Kiu is pursuing are seats, airbags, space frames, AC fittings, and heat sinks.

It’s just a beginning to learn the technology and procedure of automobile . Kamkiu will certainly provide one-stop solution service for customers. What’s more, our group also owns the ability to complete the task in short term, run quick facd-lift, and ensure the stability of the whole process of production. It ‘s the market need that make Kamkiu contribute itself to the aluminum extrusion.

In order to enhance its management team, improve its production and process technology, and expand its international market, Kam Kiu has put a lot of effort in recruiting and encouraging talented professionals and specialists in the aluminum extrusion field domestically and overseas to join the Group Now ,the Group has a strong high-level managing team and global marketing team with many foreign employees, operating globally with sales offices in Beijing, Shenzhen, Vancouver, Chicago, Florida, Atlanta, New Jersey, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Melbourne, Sydney, and London. The Group also encourage professional sales people from local markets to bridge cultural differences and build strong relationships with the customers.

High-level management and technical staff at Kam Kiu are often organized to travel abroad and have technology exchanges with their international counterparts and related international associations. In 2004, Kam Kiu became the first Chinese member in The Aluminum Association (AA), and the Group now is also the member of Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC).

Acting sales director of the Kam Kiu Aluminium Group, responsible for global sales and marketing, Benson Wu has represented Kam Kiu to attend various international aluminum and extrusion conferences. He is a professional in international operations and project management in aluminum industry.

As to the tendency of group, Benson Wu summarized: “In face of great potential growth in the aluminum extrusion industry, we have introduced a new style production facility and raise our product quality and consciously promote our KAP brand name identification together with latest hardware & software. In this way, we can seize opportunity and take that great leap forward to meet the competition in the international arena. We derive our success through the trust and generous support of our customers and business associates. The Group is committed to provide customers with products of enhanced quality and satisfy their most stringent demands. This partnership will become more and more stable with the passing of time.