Good workmanship and deliveries brought name and fame to Finetex. The 21st part of a series describing the unknown triumphs and travails of doing international business
I followed the buses as they carried our staff to their quarters. It took almost an hour to reach their secured ladies camp, which was located just outside the Free Zone, and was approved by the authorities. There were only a restricted few who had access to the camp, and I was one of them.
There were couple of girls, including the first supervisor, called Malkanthi, who could converse in English; the other was arriving on the next flight couple of days later. One the procedures were all explained and formal introductions made in the camp, I returned back to inform Perera the position and began my work on preparation of documents, passports, etc to the Free Zone authorities the next day.
As was the practice, I left home little earlier than seven, so that when the bus arrived at the plant, I would be there. Piyasena and his team were already in the office and Bob Eustace had not only activated the power, but was present to reassure Perera that he was ready to extend all the help when needed.
Piyasena being a very methodical man again went through the process of interviewing each girl and making his own assessments of their knowledge and capabilities. Our plant was to be based on batch production basis and the very best operator for making a particular product was to be assigned that job only for obtaining the best finished product.
By the end of the day, we found that the first lot of 60 girls could not complete a production line; in the sense, for example, we had couple of girls who could make excellent cuffs, but we had none who could make top quality collars; likewise, other parts of the garments had to be all made ‘perfectly’ so that, when assembled, the final product would be a “perfect shirt, blouse, whatever”. This kind of mismatch was expected, Perera said, until the entire recruited staff are assembled and tested for their actual knowledge and capacity. This inadequacy was covered after arrival of all flights!
The next lot of 79 girls was due on the 17th, when we had scheduled our production. By this time, the first lot had got acclimatized to the camp and canteen and whole-heartedly welcomed the new group. The third and fourth lots were scheduled to arrive one day apart, on the 19th and 21st, by which time we could complete our full complement of the plant. Their arrivals and locations in the camp went on without a hitch.
The processing of documents for the entire batch continued without a moment’s rest; these had to be submitted immediately upon arrival; as the Free Zone officials had to complete their recording before passing the documents to the immigration authorities so that the local ID (also called the pataka) had to be issued to every single employee, which they had to keep in their possession all the time.
Our wage bill had started the moment the staff arrived in the country and everyone was busy doing his/her job to set the whole operation in motion.
But I had not finalized any immediate order for processing in the plant. I had the option of taking a contract job, which is what I had planned initially for a few months before accepting direct orders. The choice was to speak to my good friend Aziz at Singleton and/or Sheru at Palmon, both of whom had specialized in making a variety of shirts.
A word or two about contract jobs would be nice. The main contractor let us say Singleton, in this instance, may have received an order for 50,000 shirts from a single client in the US, for dispatch to various stores in New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, San Francisco and Florida. This would have been based on the fabric, style and design of the shirt approved by the client. Singleton would have sourced the raw materials like cotton sheeting (from India) and accessories (mostly from Hong Kong). Once the goods are in-house, they (Singleton) may start production in their own plant and give sub-contracts to others, like they did with us, for a job work. For the sake of easy understanding, Singleton confirmed the order on us, and sub-contracted us to make 12,000 shirts @ $15 a dozen. Our only responsibility was to supply our own threads (cotton, in this case) and make the shirts per approved design and deliver the goods, ironed and packed in their polybags, all ready for shipment. They gave us 15 days to deliver the above lot, considering the fact that we had just started, and we may have some hiccups.
We overcame our troubles, sometimes relocating the staff from one particular operation to another and delivered the goods in about 12 days, earning a total of $12,000 as our sub-contracting labour charges, minus the cost of threads. During the process of manufacture, Singleton had their inspectors testing for quality and workmanship and ensuring that we were consuming the fabric in line with their estimates. As the work was progressing midway, we began to get feelers from others if we could do their jobs, as well.
Piyasena and his team worked in tandem and we received good appreciation and orders from our neighbours. Without our capital investment, in terms of importing raw materials and accessories, we simply ensured the supplies of these locally and met their exacting demands and earned our keep.
All our staff members had good experience on Juki machines; some had good knowledge of Pegasus; many others were good only for laying and cutting departments, while others were in ironing, packing; most had experience of thread cutting (removing loose threads, etc), which meant standing for at least eight hours at a stretch!
Finetex was the first plant in the Free Zone which had large canteen facilities for staff to have their meals; it had adequate provision for a great number of rest rooms for men and women separately and a sick-bay, in case someone was under the weather, so that they could take rest before resuming work.
Juki’s main competitor was Singer, whose local representatives got in touch with our senior partner and was willing to give special terms. They wanted us to lead in the use of Singer machines; I think we decided to buy some 100 machines or so from them. Delivery was promised ex-stock (almost within 10 days) but what could we do without supporting personnel? We asked for delivery some six weeks later, because of the process of recruitment, obtaining of visas, and getting seats in overcrowded lights from Colombo.
Some six months had elapsed since Piyasena Perera had commenced production and he worked generally for more than 10 hours every day. I have never seen anyone as conscious as he was in running a plant in my life, so knowledgeable and hardworking.
Zubair was regular in his visits to the factory and we had regular meetings. We felt a change in the atmosphere; Piyasena’s visit to his family was overdue. We sent him off on his mission to get the additional staff to match the Singer machines we had ordered.
For next seven days I was acting as the production manager also, thanks to the unstinted cooperation that I received from Malkanthi, Chandra, Ruby and a couple of others. For me, too, generally it was a minimum of 10 to 12 hours a day in the plant, in addition to the driving time to cover some 50 km each way.
We began to accept orders from reputed importers who visited our plant; also the Free Zone would recommend a visit to our plant, as it was the newest and built with comprehensive facilities. There was not a single garment importer who had not visited our plant even though they may be regular buyers from others. Our workmanship and deliveries brought name and fame to our door-step.
(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts. From being the advisor to exporters, he took over the mantle of a trader, travelled far and wide, and switched over to setting up garment factories and then worked in the US. He can be contacted at [email protected].)
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