●【Project Narrative】>>Project Overview

1、Competition Category：Local Business
2、Description of Our Community：

• “Dingfanpo” includes Dingfan and Toulun Villages of Lukang, old named “Fanpozhuang.” Due to its long and narrow geographical feature, natives also call it “Dingfanpo” or “Xiafanpo.”
• It located at the junction corner among Lukang, Hemei and Xianxi. The village is separated by Yang Zi Cuo river which leads to sea near Changhua Coastal Industrial Park. Less than one kilometer away from the sea, the village has strong winter winds, only suited for dryland farming with its high salinity soil. Therefore, farmers have low income and tough life.
• Due to poor agricultural practices, natives started to turn to manufacture industry in 30s and 40s. Most families earned their living by plumbing, molding and plating.
• Half of faucet-related products in the world come from Taiwan, and eighty percents of them are made in “Dingfanpo.” It is a well deserved honor to call Dingfanpo “birthplace of faucets.”

3、Project Topic：

• Faucet is a daily necessity and the quality standard of life. Four to five kilometers outside our school are full of faucet-related companies. The questions begin to pique the interests of little soldiers, why are so many plumbing factories here? How is faucet manufactured? Who is buying these faucets? So we go through local history and internet information to discover that Dingfanpo is the birthplace of faucets. From the plumbing industry in the 30s, faucets and valves in the 40s, all the way to heyday in the 50s, hundreds of factories manufacture half of the faucets in the world. As a result, little soldiers decide on faucet as their 2015 Taiwan Cyber Fair project topic. It begins the tour of faucet discovery, into studying the past, present and future of faucet.

4、Research Object：

• Introducing the leader of Dingfanpo plumbing industry~ Sheng Tai Brassware Corporation. How it goes from OEM to create its own brand “Justime,” winning international design awards, showing Taiwan creativity and craftsmanship to the world, promoting the made-in-Taiwan “Justime” to international stage, honoring the tradition of faucet hometown.

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5、Our Internet Environment：

• The school has a 100MB fiber academic network, plus the wireless coverage is around ninety-five percent of the campus. With great internet environment, we can search information at any corner of the campus, and upload these data to school FTP, NAS or Google drive to share with project members.
• There are 36 computers in the computer labs, we usually discussed any related assignments about cyber fair there during lunch break.
• Most members have ADSL or fiber network at home, or smart phones/tablets connecting to network. We can easily doing our assignment at home.
• Besides, we create a 2015 cyber fair working Google Sites, all of the members can discuss anything about the project at any given time. It helps our team confidence and friendships.

6、Obstacles We Had to Overcome：

• Poor interview skill：
  Though instructor Tse-Jung has practiced with us about the interview, discussing and carefully structured our questions, we still got nervous during the interview. Poor expression aside, we also ignored the interviewees occasionally by talking to teammates. Thankfully they were all very kind and willing to guide us, avoiding lots of awkward situations.
• Set up website structure and outline：
  Though we have plenty of information through our visit and internet research, properly setting up our website structure and outline is still a big problem for us.
• Improve computer skill：
  Blog is way more popular than traditional website now. In order to integrate all the data into our website, we still need to improve computer skills, such as Photoshop, animation design, video editing, website editing and special effects, etc…
• Difficulty of teamwork distribution：
  Instructor used to say, Teamwork effectiveness is multiplied, if one teammate gives “zero” effort, it will lead to “zero” result. Though we had work assignments and distributions, team members had their own classes and homework, plus winter vacation and Chinese New Year in between. Therefore discussion time of the project was very limited. We were often behind schedule. As a result, we wasted hours of blind discussions to discover that it was not corresponding to the project purposes.
• Difficulty as rural ambassadors：
  → too shy while on the stage, could not look at the audiences, like talking to the air.
  → no confidence doing the introductions, audiences could not hear our feeble voices.
  → rely too much on PowerPoint, as a result, forgot there were audience.
  → did not memorized the report clearly, the presentation were sloppy and unfocused.

7、Reflections：

• Attention and Innovation：
  With this project, we learn a lot more about Sheng Tai. In order to keep a business long and prosperous, you have to pay attention to your own products. If a company only values profits and revenues but the quality of its products, it cannot have a sustainable operation. On the contrary, business which values design and production quality often has longtime supports from its customers. By our observation, Sheng Tai is a good company values product quality, but is the success so easily achieved? Of course not, ST not only pays attention to product quality, but also keeps on improving. Every product has its own story, every detail is carefully designed. You can learn this from all the awards ST has won. It is how they stay successful and on top of the industry. Similar to how we conduct ourselves, if a man only choose the easy way or be opportunistic, certainly won’t lead to good result. Therefore we should learn more from Sheng Tai.
• Pursuing innovation, but also remember the original spirit and value：
  With the progress of modern technology, the style and function of faucet become more diverse, and the new products gradually replace traditional Bib Taps. Even though traditional faucet gradually falls out of the market, Sheng Tai tries to reserve the tradition by creating the classical and kid-friendly Story Series faucet. It represents the original spirit and value while pursuing innovation.
  A faucet tells a history, a story and humanity. Thanks to all the hard work by its staff; creativity and innovation by its design team; and extraordinary leadership by operators, Sheng Tai is capable of making sorts of delicate faucets, bringing this dying industry back to the spotlight.

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