A Pencil Empire Endures in a Digital Age
鉛筆帝國屹立數位時代
By Jack Ewing

STEIN, Germany – Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell has been known to hurl wooden pencils from the tower of his castle to the stone courtyard below.
大家都知道，安敦－沃夫岡‧輝柏伯爵曾從自家城堡塔樓上，把木製鉛筆扔向鋪了石頭的中庭。

It is not a petty fit of pique by a mad Bavarian aristocrat. The 72-year-old count, the eighth in a long line of pencil makers, just wants to prove how durable the pencils that carry his family name are.
這可不是一位瘋狂的巴伐利亞貴族無足輕重的嗔怒舉動。這位72歲的伯爵、鉛筆製造家族的第八代子孫，只是想證明這些印有家族姓氏的鉛筆有多耐摔。

The Faber-Castell family has been making wooden pencils by the hundreds of millions here by the swift Rednitz River. A torrent of brightly colored pencils flows from clattering machines in a century-old factory with a tile roof and windows framed in pastel hues.
輝柏家族已經在這逝水匆匆的雷德尼次河畔製造出億萬枝木製鉛筆。亮麗的彩色鉛筆就像一道洪流，從有瓦頂、粉蠟色窗框的百年老廠房噹啷作響的機器中奔流而出。

Faber-Castell is the largest maker of wood-encased pencils in the world. It also makes a broad range of pens, crayons and art and drawing supplies as well as accessories like erasers and sharpeners. About half the company’s German production is exported, mostly to other countries in the euro zone.
輝柏是全球最大的木鉛筆製造商，另並製造多種原子筆（鋼筆）、蠟筆、藝術與繪畫用品及輔助用品，如橡皮擦和削筆器。輝柏在德國製造的產品約有半數外銷，主要銷往歐元區其他國家。

Not all its factories are in Germany. But when Faber-Castell, which is privately held, manufactures in places like Indonesia and Brazil, it is at its own factories.
輝柏的工廠並非全在德國，不過當這家未上市公司在諸如印尼、巴西等地生產時，都是由自有工廠製造。

Faber-Castell has stay competitive in the global marketplace by focused on design and engineering, turning everyday products into luxury goods.
輝柏能在全球市場長保競爭力，是因在設計和工藝上著力，把日常用品化為精品。

When even preschool children know how to operate iPads, there is no certainty of a future for colored pencils and ink markers.
在這個學齡前兒童都會用iPad的時代，彩色鉛筆和麥克筆前景未卜。

“The biggest challenge for Faber-Castell will be how writing will develop with the advent of digital technology,” said Hermann Simon, a management consultant. “Will children still write? But Faber-Castell recognizes this challenge.”
管理顧問西蒙說：「輝柏最大的挑戰是，在數位科技出現後書寫會如何發展。小孩還會用筆寫字嗎？不過，輝柏已體認到這個問題。」

Faber-Castell, founded in 1761 when graphite pencils were a novelty, has overcome technological shifts before. When Count Anton took over the business in 1978, after the death of his father, the company was a leading maker of slide rules. That was soon laid to waste by the electronic calculator. Then, in the 1980s, the advent of computer-assisted design soon gutted the market for its mechanical drawing products.
輝柏1761年創立時石墨鉛筆還是新玩意，過去也曾克服科技潮流轉變的挑戰。1978年安敦伯爵在父喪後接掌輝柏，當時輝柏是計算尺的知名廠商。不久，計算尺就因電子計算機出現而遭淘汰。後來在1980年代，電腦輔助設計技術出現，很快就讓輝柏的機械製圖產品市場灰飛煙滅。

Count Anton had been working as an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston when his father died unexpectedly. He was not thrilled to assume the family throne. “I wasn’t interested in pencils,” he said.
父親猝逝時安敦是瑞士信貸第一波士頓公司的投資金融專才，接掌家族企業意願不高，曾說：「我對鉛筆沒興趣。」

To his surprise, he enjoyed the business. And he felt a responsibility to preserve the family legacy, a typical characteristic of German companies.
沒想到他後來竟樂在其中，覺得有責任保存輝柏家族的遺產，而這也是德國企業界的典型特徵。

The count revamped the product line to put more emphasis on higher-priced products, ranging from colored pencils for artists to fountain pens selling for thousands of dollars. Premium products account for about 10 percent of sales.
安敦伯爵改變了生產線，把更多資源放在各種高價產品，諸如藝術家用的彩色鉛筆和售價數千美元的鋼筆。高價產品約占銷售額的10%。

“You have to continuously shift,” said Count Anton. “If you lean back and say, ‘With my products I can be happy,’ then it’s the first step to hell.”
安敦伯爵說：「你必須日新又新，假如你往後一靠，說『現在這些產品我就很滿意了』，那就是走向滅亡的第一步。」

While the basic design of a pencil has not changed much in 400 years, Faber-Castell has managed to find ways to be unique. For example, in the late 1990s, it developed a triangular pencil with raised dots that make it easier to hold. That proved popular.
雖然鉛筆的基本設計四百年來改變不大，輝柏卻總能獨樹一格。例如在1990年代晚期，輝柏研發出三角形鉛筆，表面有小點凸起方便握住，很受歡迎。

Innovations include the use of water-based coatings to make pencils more environmentally friendly, as well as nontoxic to compulsive pencil chewers. To demonstrate the harmlessness of the ink Faber-Castell uses in children’s markers, Count Anton drank a glassful on camera this year.
其他創新還包括使用水性塗料，對環境更友善，也不會讓有嚼鉛筆癖的人中毒。為了證明輝柏兒童麥克筆所用墨水對健康無害，安敦伯爵今年還當著鏡頭喝下一整杯。

Faber-Castell was founded by Kasper Faber, a carpenter’s apprentice. His great-grandson Lothar Faber was given noble status in 1861 by King Maximilian II of Bavaria after building the company into the world’s dominant pencil maker.
輝柏創辦人是木工學徒卡斯伯‧輝柏。他的曾孫洛塔‧輝柏因為使這家公司成為獨霸全球的鉛筆製造商，而於1861年獲巴伐利亞國王馬克西米利安二世封為貴族。

Count Anton maintains that writing by hand will never disappear. People still use pens, pencils and highlighters for personal notes and to mark up printed documents. And even in wealthy countries, he says, children use pencils and pens to learn how to develop the motor skills needed to read and write.
安敦伯爵堅信手寫永遠不會消失。人們仍然用原子筆（鋼筆）、鉛筆和螢光筆做私人筆記，在印刷文件上作記號。他說，就算在富國，兒童也還在用鉛筆和原子筆學習如何發展閱讀、寫作需要的動作技能。

“The pencil is in some way a very archaic product but still indispensable,” he said. “The pencil will remain alive much longer than we probably believe.”
他說：「雖然鉛筆可說是非常古老的產品，卻仍然不可或缺。鉛筆會存活得比我們想像的久得多。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/business/international/hands-on-bavarian-count-presides-over-a-pencil-making-empire.html

Video：Penciling In the Future: A visit to the pencil-making factory of Faber-Castell in Stein, Germany, one of the world’s largest makers of writing instruments.
http://nyti.ms/1jj9n7x

2013-12-24聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS李京倫譯 原文參見紐時週報七版右