Textbook Factory in a Tower

Taipei | Anyone who imagines large-scale production facilities has to rethink when it comes to Dynascan: The headquarters in Taiwan are not only an administration and development centre, but also a production site for tens of thousands of outdoor totems, kiosk systems, and high-brightness displays. The digital signage systems are produced on many floors. invidis took a closer look.

We have already visited some display assemblies. And it is always quite disappointing how low the vertical integration is: The components coming from Asia are assembled in a clean room in just a few minutes. Since consumer TVs and professional displays are built on the same production line, it is a highly automated mass business. This is quite different at Dynascan, where not only the vertical range of manufacture is higher, but also totems weighing hundreds of kilograms hang from the ceiling, and high-brightness displays up to 100″ in size are produced. Dynascan President Alan Kaufman and CEO David Huang gave invidis a one-day tour of the headquarters.

Production on several floors

The weight and size of the totems alone are enormous, but even more surprising is the fact that the production is spread over several floors in a modern glass tower – that is chic from the outside and inside. Several thousand people are employed here, everything revolves around high-brightness – and technical measuring instruments from the Dynascan parent company Chroma.

Chroma is the world’s largest supplier of power test instruments and systems, including programmable AC sources, DC power supplies, laboratory power supplies, electronic AC and DC loads, digital meters, multimeters, and automated test systems. Fun Fact: around the turn of the millennium, before invidis was founded, we tested displays with what were then very expensive Chroma test instruments.

The special feature of sunlight-readable displays is the backlight. Just turning up the brightness is not the solution. After only a few months, the brightness decreases. Dynascan has developed its own backlights that illuminate the entire surface of the LCD panels and not just the edges, with different coloured LEDs and in a specific arrangement. More cannot be revealed, but the marriage of the display panel and backlight takes place fully automatically in a clean room. In general, the production floors of Dynascan and Chroma are very similar – the finest measuring instruments and digital signage screens are assembled here.

In batch production, a mid-five-digit number of totems and smart city kiosk systems are manufactured and shipped worldwide. Not always as free-standing DooH touchpoints, but also for entrance areas of discounters or shop windows of eyewear chains and telecommunications companies.

Most popular are 75″ and 86″ outdoor solutions and 65″ Smart City kiosk systems with touch screens.

In addition to cooling and operational safety, Dynascan has gained a lot of experience with the right service points in 25 years of outdoor signage. For example, gas struts facilitate access for service crews, and components such as power supplies are neatly installed side-by-side and easily accessible.

Dynascan stores components and spare parts centrally – because a long product use is elementarily important for professional digital signage solutions. Even during the pandemic, Dynascan was able to produce and deliver regularly.