What It Takes to Inherit and Transform a Family Factory
Family Business in Precision Plastic Injection
We are Stella and Amy. We share firsthand stories at the crossroads of tech, business, and culture, helping leaders craft actionable cross-cultural strategies. Together, we bridge cultural divides and bring the world a little closer—one step at a time.
In our latest podcast episode, we interviewed Anton, the successor to his family’s precision plastic injection business. He shared with us how he came to take over the company, the challenges he faced, and how he approaches digital transformation in a traditional factory setting.
A traditional plastic injection factory v.s. A modern plastic injection factory
What is precision plastic injection, anyway?
This technology is used to create products ranging from medical supplies—like syringes and contact lens cases—to everyday items like marker caps and perfume bottles. These products often require tolerances as fine as 0.02 millimeters—thinner than a strand of human hair.
Waykai Industry[https://way-kai.com/en/], based in Changhua, Taiwan, specializes in providing all-in-one solutions for precision plastic products. The company not only customizes highly durable molds for clients but also handles the manufacturing. Our guest, 29-year-old Anton, represents a new generation of traditional manufacturers redefining what it means to inherit a family business. His journey from reluctant heir to digital transformation pioneer offers insight into how legacy industries can embrace innovation while staying rooted in tradition.
Growing Up in the Factory
For Anton, the boundary between home and work barely existed. His family’s factory operated on the ground floor of their building, with living quarters directly above. The rhythmic hum of injection molding machines served as the soundtrack of his childhood, and dinner table conversations often revolved around production schedules, customer orders, and mold adjustments.
“Work-life boundaries didn’t exist in our household,” Anton recalls. His parents regularly worked until 1 or 2 AM, driven by the relentless demands of entrepreneurship. One especially memorable moment from his childhood—a late-night prank meant to cheer up his exhausted parents—ended with a harsh lesson: “I learned that night that my parents didn’t have the energy for games.”
Throughout Anton’s upbringing, the family endured three factory relocations, each marking a new phase of business growth. He witnessed his father break down in tears during financially trying times, including a high-stakes investment of millions of TWD in CNC machinery—a gamble that could have bankrupted them but ultimately secured their competitive edge.
The Reluctant Path to Succession
Anton initially envisioned a career in consulting, not manufacturing. After earning a degree in Industrial Engineering, he asked a professor for advice on entering the consulting field. The response was blunt but eye-opening: “Who would hire a young graduate with no experience? Why not make your family business your first consulting project?”
That conversation shifted Anton’s perspective. He realized that his seven years of education—from mechanical drafting in high school to industrial engineering in college—had been preparing him for this role all along. Upon returning, he started from the bottom, beginning with mold maintenance and cleaning.
“I spent the first three years learning every aspect of our production process before making any changes,” Anton says. “You can’t innovate what you don’t understand.” This hands-on approach earned him credibility with longtime employees and his father, laying the technical foundation for future leadership.
Building Respect Through Expertise
Navigating the father-son dynamic in a family business can be tricky—requiring a balance between respect for authority and the need to contribute fresh ideas. For Anton, the turning point came through technical conversations about mold tolerances and injection parameters. Once he could meaningfully engage with these core issues, he noticed a shift in his father’s perception.
Today, their roles are clearly defined: Anton’s father serves as CTO, leveraging over three decades of hands-on experience, while Anton oversees business operations, digital transformation, and strategic planning. Rather than positioning changes as replacements for old methods, Anton frames them as investments that enhance his father's ability to monitor and control quality.
“The key was making him an investor in the transformation—not a student of new systems,” Anton explains. This approach helped avoid the generational conflicts that often plague family business transitions.
Running the Factory
How to Retain Talent
Traditional manufacturing faces a major talent crisis: aging workers, difficulty attracting young talent, and limited knowledge transfer. Anton’s strategy challenges conventional wisdom: “We need to be good enough to make employees want to stay, while training them to be strong enough to leave.”
He introduced standardized training programs, including detailed handbooks for junior technicians with clear learning milestones tied to salary increases. He also implemented transparent career progression paths and profit-sharing based on openly shared financial data.
While such practices may be standard in the corporate world, they are rare in traditional manufacturing—and they’ve helped foster trust and happiness among employees.
Smart Digital Transformation
Instead of pursuing a sweeping digital overhaul—which often fails in traditional industries—Anton adopted a phased approach, addressing immediate pain points. His first major initiative involved installing IoT devices and ERP systems for machine monitoring. This allowed supervisors to receive mobile notifications about equipment issues rather than physically inspecting each machine.
“We started with the most obvious problem: supervisors running around the factory floor to check machine status,” Anton explains. Government subsidies offset the initial 800,000 TWD investment, making the project financially viable and easier for his father to accept.
More recently, Anton has embraced AI tools like ChatGPT and n8n for process automation. He personally used AI to convert a complex Excel-based quotation system into a web application—without hiring any external technical consultants. Now, with just a simple web UI, he can generate quotes for customers quickly and efficiently.
Building a Sustainable Legacy
Anton’s transformation of Waykai Industry offers valuable lessons in second-generation leadership. Rather than rejecting traditional methods, successful successors must first understand the reasoning behind existing practices before making improvements.
Anton is also passionate about telling the stories of Taiwan’s thousands of manufacturers and aims to ease the often-overlooked transition of knowledge and leadership between generations. Beyond his own factory, he hopes to inspire a new wave of second-generation owners to lead with both respect for tradition and a bold vision for the future—grounded in people, empowered by technology.
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