Joy Group takes up challenge to become sustainable manufacturer

The extent to which companies in the Taiwanese bicycle industry have adopted sustainable practices into their manufacturing varies greatly. Jeff Chen, general manager of Joy Group, told Bike Europe that this is one of the reasons why his company decided to take on the challenge of the Bicycle Alliance for Sustainability (BAS): “This project is to the benefit of the whole industry.”

Since the foundation of BAS in Taiwan, Chen has been closely involved in the initiative. As vice chairman of BAS, he is also a member of the E-Team, which stands for ‘environmental’ as in ESG. BAS also has working groups for Social and Governance. Initial reports on the founding of BAS came out in autumn 2022, but “the alliance was only up and running in January 2023”, explains Chen. “As an industry, we were late in joining forces to focus on reducing the carbon footprint compared to others.”

Joy Industrial Co. Ltd., or Joy Group, was founded in October 1971 as a specialist in the production of bicycle hubs. After decades of strategic alliances with leading bicycle brands and OEM/ODM customers, the company developed its manufacturing and product development capabilities. Joy Group shifted its focus to build its own brands, including Joy Tech, Novatec, and Novatec Premium, which was introduced in 2023. Each brand is aimed at different market segments to meet dynamic customer needs. The company was also involved in the A-Team. Already in 2004 it improved its production considerably thanks to the learnings of the A-Team and subsequently the implementation of the Toyota production system.

Quick wins in ESG

Production in Taiwan currently still requires a lot of manual labour. “In this factory we produce many of the high-end products which come in smaller series,” explains Jeff Chen. “Our facility in Shenzhen, China, has a higher level of production automation and robotisation in order to have a consistent output in quality.”

Since the start of BAS, many workshops on related topics were followed by participating companies. “We could see that companies like Giant, KMC and Tektro are top of the class on this topic, but many others need to catch up in both know-how and the implementation of all kinds of measures. Fortunately, many projects are easy to copy from one company to another, which makes it possible in this phase to gain many quick wins,” said Chen.

“Many ESG projects are easy to copy from other companies for quick wins”

Knowledge sharing

“Just like the famous A-Team, which took the industry in Taiwan to the next level, BAS is about knowledge and information sharing to professionalise the industry,” adds Chen. “The first topic we faced as BAS was the implementation of the raw materials act adopted by the United States and the European Union last autumn. Hardly anybody in the bicycle industry was aware of the consequences, while a proper translation was not available either. Even our European customers could not explain the implications,” he said. BAS expects to launch its website soon to improve communication.

First steps taken

In Joy's own factory, several steps have been taken to improve the company’s sustainability, like the replacement of all plastic bags with the bee nest paper wrap and the re-use of scraped products. The hubs come today with laser printed applications instead of traditional decal to save the use of a plastic carrier.

Joy Group will be exhibiting at Taipei Cycle Show, they can be found at booth number I0922, (TaiNEX 1).