In the 1950's, just a few years after World War II, there was nothing but agriculture in Taiwan. There was little industrialization, therefore the standard of living was simple and basic necessities were scarce. It was difficult to obtain the industrial equipment necessary to manufacture pencil knives and as a result manual labor was used to drive a traditional grinding-stone device instead. This situation changed in 1953 with the establishment of Shuen Der, which is now known as SDI.