New factors are needed to radically change productivity improvements

Applying the overall productivity model, there are parts of Nam Long that increase productivity by 1.7 times.

Nam Long Co., Ltd. was established in November 1998 and officially came into operation in March 1999. Main products are industrial gloves, multifunction gloves and household gloves. With the motto of “Nam Long wishes to become a close companion of housewives and marine seafood companies”, the Company now has nearly 100 agents distributing products nationwide, with output of 25 million pairs/year.

Not only interested in the domestic market, in order to reach out to the world market, Nam Long also produces an extremely different product line that Vietnam has not yet been able to produce, that is the rubber line without Protein, for sensitive allergy-prone skin.

In just a short time to produce this product, Nam Long has affirmed its brand with orders to export to Europe, where people have high requirements for smelly rubber products (due to protein for long fermentation causes odor) and is easily irritated with natural rubber.

Mr. Le Bach Long – General Director of Nam Long Co., Ltd shared that if manufacturing, every business would think about improving productivity to reduce costs. Since the establishment of the Company, the company has developed a quality management system according to ISO 9001: 2008 and converted to ISO 9001: 2015 version. 6 years ago, the Company also signed a contract with Quacert 3 to guide the application of 5S, LEAN and every year maintained the repeat training, but the results were not clear. The deployment is only good when experts come, get some time back into it, showing great inertia.

“The problem is to change the perceptions of both leaders and workers, so that people are accustomed to maintaining lean production. And the consultants of the Vietnam Productivity Institute are really a new factor, bringing about the change, the seven stagnant stones of workers here ”- Mr. Long said.

According to the Company’s detailed report on the results of the Project, the most obvious change is the packaging area. Although it is the most labor intensive stage, it still cannot meet the production demand. Because of low productivity at this stage, the productivity in the manufacturing sector is only 60-65%. The company used the overtime solution and still did not meet the job.

When the consultants surveyed in this area, found that with the current workflow, there are 6 value-added activities, 5 transportation activities, 8 waiting or redo operations, 6 inspection activities. Activities that waste too much such as transportation, travel, bag removal, bag closure, re-checking.

After analyzing the iterative steps, waste affects workers’ productivity, the process is redesigned accordingly, avoiding waste. Because the condition of a continuous flow is the speed of the equilibrium positions, so the new process has calculated, arranged to arrange the same workload, work speed evenly. As a result, reducing from 25 activities to 15 activities, transporting from 5 activities to 2 activities, waiting, redo from 8 activities to 2 activities, checking from 6 activities to 5 activities.

Specifically, the glove area has been improved by the working group and is carried out in a continuous product line. Each table is a different type of product, avoiding confusion between product lines, the continuous flow of reducing rework and transportation jobs.

The area of ​​the gluing and packing machine has been improved, the working table has the height equal to the height of the gluing machine, instead of sitting as before, the workers are arranged to stand and manipulate, 1 gluing machine will arrange 2 packing workers. Right technique, faster operation, increased productivity, balanced process, no longer semi-finished products.

According to statistics, the individual labor productivity in this department has increased by 1.7 times (up 73%). Previously, to complete 80,000 pairs of gloves, workers took 12 hours of continuous work from 6 hours morning to 6pm. After the improvement, as of September 2019, it still takes 10 hours for such workers to complete 115,000 pairs of gloves.

Also because before, the packaging department was too slow, did not meet the requirements, so the production department had to remove 30% of the mold, now the whole mold has been installed, running at 100% capacity.

Especially as workers do not have to work overtime, while wages are paid by product, productivity increases mean workers’ income increases, an estimated 40% increase in wages in the packaging area, thus increasing employee satisfaction level.

General Director Long appreciated the results of this change and said that it is important to maintain the habit of continuous improvement of all employees. From that, create consciousness, soak into the blood of each individual, from the determination of the leader to the will of each employee. After participating in the overall productivity model project of the Ministry of Industry and Trade this time, Mr. Long became more and more aware of the need to increase communication and learning between units to constantly update and change himself. “It is the attachment for too long that makes the inertia bigger, need to learn exchange regularly, plus external actors to make a difference, integrating each small tool into a tissue. The overall shape and operation is smooth and efficient”, said Mr. Long.

In order to maintain the quality according to the strict standards of the US and Europe, the Company has established its own R&D department mainly researching quality standards, in order to meet the standards of all different markets. Vietnam has the advantage of producing this item because the industry tends to shift from China, Japan, Korea, etc to Vietnam. Besides, the abundant supply of natural rubber in Vietnam is also favorable for businesses. Therefore, this is a good opportunity for businesses like Nam Long to rise up, compete to affirm the brand, create markets for their products, expand more new export markets, serve Sustainable development of Vietnam’s rubber industry.

Source: VNPI