Manufacturers given pointers to make business competitive.
by Zorabelle Fran Uy
Cebu Daily News

Cebu City, Philippines - “Fast, flexible, defect-free, lean, and green are the key criteria essential for a factory industry to successfully compete globally.”

Professor Rene T. Domingo, core faculty of the Master in Business Management Program of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), discussed these five criteria with the local manufacturers, who attended the third leg of the Cebu Business Summit Series on Tuesday at the Cebu City Sports Club.

Representatives from Cebu's manufacturing companies led by Julie's Franchising Corp., Ng Khai Development Corp., and Stitches and Wear attended the summit organized by Microsoft Philippines and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Domingo gave pointers on how a factory industry can increase labor quality and produce value-added products without resorting to traditional cost-cutting and down-sizing.

He said all indicators of excellence in factory operations can be conveniently grouped into five: defect-free, fast, flexible, lean, and environment-friendly.

A defect-free factory checks the source instead of catching errors at the end and ensures that everything is transparent to spot mistakes.

He said the quality of products can be assured by “doing the right thing right the first time.”

On being fast, flexible and lean, Domingo said that factories should use much less resources than its conventional counterpart in producing widgets of the same quality and quantity, have a continuous cycle time reduction, open to process elimination and re-sequencing, opt to synchronize production, and resort to sole-sourcing instead of multi-sourcing, among others.

Domingo stressed the importance of operating in a clean and safe environment.

He said that environmental control should be part of the cost production in a manufacturing company.

He said that it is better for a company to produce “green” products which are recyclable, reusable, repairable, and “remanufacturable.”

“With continuous learning comes continuous improvements. Challenge old ways and current processes for innovation. Learn not only from your mistakes but from others as well,” he said.

Aside from being an AIM faculty, Domingo is also Sime Darby professor for manufacturing.

He teaches and conducts training seminars and workshops on manufacturing best practices and has published various articles and several notable books on world-class manufacturing and service management.

The first two summits of Microsoft Philippines focused on the food and beverage industry and the retail industry.

“We did a shotgun approach before but we decided now to focus on specific industries. We think this is a better approach so that we can show industry specific solutions and identify exactly what Microsoft can offer,” said Boy Bawal, director for southern Philippines sales operations of Microsoft Philippines.

Lyn Reyes, sales engagement manager of Microsoft Philippines, said the objective of the business summit series is to “educate each industry about the value of Microsoft Solution and how it can help industries to become more competitive in the market.”