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SINGAPORE: Organizing and verifying the designs of works of art, corporate posters and signs before sending them for printing have been the main daily work of Ms. Cheang Meng Ching as editor for more than 10 years.
But since May, his good eye for detail has been devoted to other responsibilities at work.
Instead of reviewing the designs of its design software, Cheang now oversees 3 production lines that can each produce 4,000 surgical masks depending on the time, as a component of its role in quality documentation.
“It’s (a) challenge because I didn’t know anything about ISO (standards) before that,” he said.
The big replacement came when his employer, AVS Technologies, began generating masks from his Ubi workplace, anything that had little to do with the company’s core business of distributing printing devices and offering printing facilities such as 3D printing.
Other workers at the local corporation have also had to take on very other purposes in recent months, ranging from device management, product mask control to packaging.
“We have trained the 30 in accounting, graphic design, marketing, sales and management in mask production,” said Kelvin Mun, general manager of AVS Technologies.
“When we started, it was complicated and there were days when we had to turn against almost everyone,” he recalls. “But now we can keep the equipment thin, so at any time it’s a variation of 4 to ten people from other teams. “
Mr. Mun himself provided service to the visitor. ” Everything is new to us, so the way to learn, I think, is to get feedback from our visitors. “
WHY MAKE MASKS
It was in February that the company began to think about the concept of establishing a mask production line.
“We all had disorders from the use of masks. There was a real need here,” Mun said, recalling that retail outlets no longer had a surgical mask and that countries had begun to put into effect export controls on medical materials as the coronavirus epidemic developed.
Another incentive is to be able to take credit for the experience of Aztech Group, a separate company with which it has the same owner. Aztech is owned by Mr. Mun’s father, Michael Mun.
“Thanks to (their) workplace in China, they helped us get all the gadgets we needed to make masks,” young Mun said. “That’s when we thought, “Why don’t we do anything to meet local needs?”
The resolution was taken in mid-April and the company won its first raw device and fabrics two weeks later.
While the first step seemed relatively fluid, the company paid a very high price.
In particular, the costs of molten blown polypropylene, the non-woven polymer fabric that bureaucracy eliminates the face mask, had multiplied due to global demand. Mun stated that the company had probably purchased the device at costs up to 10 times higher than those at the start of the pandemic.
“It’s like an inventory market and costs continued to rise in March, April and peaked in May. We had to buy the fabrics quickly, which means we bought them at the price,” he recalls.
With two machines, one to manufacture smaller masks for young people, which he then bought, AVS Technologies invested around S$1 million to begin production of the mask.
Challenges
The machines, located in a renovated room that was once a showroom for printers, emit a buzz when giant coils of fabrics pass through them.
First the fabrics overlap before cutting them, they are inserted with wires at the front, stamped corners and welded slopes in the fully automated line. Workers stop at the end of the queue for quick product checks before hitting the mask on plastic boxes.
Today, operations are smooth and at full speed, a single device can produce about 30,000 masks a day, Mun said.
But as with all new businesses, mistakes are inevitable at first.
Mun recalled some that there had not been well soldiers, which made the earrings fall easily.
“There were many mechanical parts involved (and) new technologies such as ultrasonic welding, which we had never used before. (The masks) seemed fine when we tried them, but that’s because we were shooting about 10 at a time, rather than one at a time. We learned that she was too late and (they) were already delivered to customers,” she told THE NAC.
The company then exchanged those masks, about 4000 coins, which it then tossed. After that, the team completes its verification process.
Mun noted that and the packaging were the “bottlenecks” in the production process, that is, when orders accumulated in May due before the “circuit breaker” was lifted.
“In addition to those who do the checks before packaging, the user running the device will also need to be very accurate in identifying problems,” he said. “The tension can be high. “
To ensure the reliability of its masks, AVS Technologies has received a license from the Health Sciences Authority. Its surgical mask logo, called WellM, is also approved by the European Union, in a different form known as the CE logo.
Test reports for your mask are also available on your website.
“We’ve put time and effort into all those tests to make sure the other people who buy know our mask is safe,” Mun said. “We do not manufacture reasonable products and do not seek to make money from this pandemic. “
Diversification?
Since production began in May, the company said it had sold about 2 million masks and recently added face screens and hand sanitizers to its repertoire.
All your products are sold lately on your website, with deliveries made through taxi drivers who want to earn more revenue.
As a component of its next step, the company began promoting its mask in Canada and Malaysia, with other markets such as the United States and Europe along its list.
When asked if mask manufacturing may be a key component of his business in the future, Mun said the costs of surgical masks have receded around the world. Since the company still uses raw fabrics that it bought when costs were at its peak, it is difficult for the new local logo to compete with much larger foreign logos in terms of price.
“The costs of masks have dropped, so I don’t think that can be sustainable in the long run given the cost of production in Singapore. but we may not give up.
“We will look for at least one line in the future; maybe not every single day, however, every single time we have to press the panic button, we are in a position to start producing.
Mun noted that the company’s printing activities have been affected by cancellations of primary events and industry shows. When asked if the company deserves to have stored for rainy days rather than making a big investment in mask manufacturing, he said, “I know that if we had to go through the same old business processes to do it or not, it wouldn’t have been done, because it’s a superior risk.
“But overall, we still agree, so we’d like to think it’s an opportunity to expand more features and also make our component to expand local mask production at a time like this. “
Through this process, the company has acquired wisdom about the production of medical equipment, which it hopes can complement its more complex printing capabilities.
“Now that we know the needs of medical device manufacturing, we seek to link what we have learned to our printing expertise, which is 3-d milling and printing engineering. . . and see if we can explore opportunities in medical manufacturing,” says Mr. . Mun.
“The government has made it clear that . . . corporations want to think about diversification. “
More importantly, he said he had won comments on his masks.
“Some consumers responded to tell us that their children enjoyed masks and were easy to breathe,” Mun said. “Criticisms like that satisfy us and satisfy us. “
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