The expectations for us are to do better job. Our quality is still very high. The customer still wants us to do better and better. Also better service. One issue is JIT, Just In Time. It started with Japanese. Now customer still expects the impossible I order today. You deliver yesterday!!
There is another issue ? Safety. For example, recently one of the Japanese toys ? was exported to United States. And that was detachable. One boy swallowed a part of it and got choked to death. And that company was sued. The toy may be 5 dollars and the fine is one billion US dollars. Where do you have the billion? One of the things if you use toxic inks for the box, you are in trouble. Safety ? sooner or later it will come.
Globalisation ? it is definitely coming. You can see in our industry. Standardisation, is one. Everybody has a range. Don’t misunderstand ? everything is same. You can make a very very strong and good looking box and on the other hand you find very very lousy box. But in the advanced countries people in Europe, USA they are about the same. The fluctuation is not that much. In Indonesia, if you buy paper from different mills the quality variation is very very high. In Europe, if you buy medium from anywhere ?even if you have not heard of the mill ? it is the same kind of paper. This is what is standardisation. Both in structure and appearance, now also cost pressure. When the paper price increases we cannot pass on to the customer, we have to try to sequeeze ourselves; cut our costs and make it viable. And with cost pressure, we have no choice but to go for higher productivity.
High accuracy ? you have to be more accurate. To be more accurate, you have to cut down on the waste. Waste is one of the biggest enemies to us. The average waste is 14% if you want to make decent automated packing. We need to be innovative. The resourcefulness ? even if you have every little resources, maximise it ? that is resourcefulness. We got to optimise, fully utilise your facilities. If you have one machine idling and there is no job either, find a job for that machine or get it out. There you have got to optimise. Human beings are part of the facility. As a matter of fact, the most important facility that we need.
Philip Wong,
Founder President, ACCA