It was always the dream of Mr Tenson Yoong to establish an integrated wood processing complex on his 20ha site in Gemas in the south of Peninsular Malaysia.
He started that process with the construction of a 120,000m3 a year particleboard factory which went into production on that site in 1996.
The botanical name for rubberwood is hevea brasiliensis and so Mr Yoong called his industrial estate HeveaWood Industrial Park and his particleboard factory HeveaBoard.
Dreams don’t always translate into reality quite as you hope or expect but Mr Yoong’s dream of a successful downstream processing operation to utilise the particleboard products certainly came true. It just didn’t happen on the HeveaWood site.
The result is HeveaPac, a flat-pack readyto-assemble (RTA) furniture factory established in late 2000 and put into production in 2001. At first, the company leased a site in Seremban, not far from Gemas, with an old disused particleboard factory providing the accommodation.
The property has since been bought by the company and HeveaPac Sdn Bhd has mushroomed in terms of turnover. In 2001, the company turned over around eight million ringgit (RM). In 2002, this soared to RM35m (US$9.2m) and in August 2003, it hit RM7.1m in the one month and a year-to- date total in excess of RM40m. Now that sounds like a dream come true.
Heveapac consumes about one third of the production of HeveaBoard and buys in thin MDF, from local suppliers such as Segamat Panelboard, for cabinet backs and drawer bottoms. Meanwhile, HeveaBoard has been concentrating on higher grade particleboard products and has successfully produced an E0 board, and a Super E0 board, employing pMDI polyurethane binders in the core and E0 urea formaldehyde in the surface layers.
In June last year, the company achieved the coveted Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) for F Four Star (F****) Super E0 board and received its first major order from a Japanese company for delivery to Taiwan. Prior to that, orders were also received from the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, where the ultimate customer was a Japanese company in each case.
HeveaBoard claims to be the pioneer of commercial production of E0 and Super E0 board in Malaysia, using pMDI resin, and this production accounts for around 10-15% of the company’s current output.
“We are promoting these products and see the percentage of our production in these grades increasing in the future,” said Mr Yoong.
“The turning point for HeveaPac came in March 2002,” he said. “We received a major order from a US company. It was a turning point for HeveaPac in fulfilling a substantial order with just-in-time deliveries. We have not looked back since and now have major well-known international retailers as customers in the UK, continental Europe and the US, as well as here in Malaysia.
“We have a large customer base and that allows us to invest in more equipment. At first, we had too few customers accounting for too much of our turnover, but that is not a problem now. Heveapac was a challenging venture but it paid off.”
The factory stands on a 10-acre site, with 300,000ft2 of undercover production area. It is equipped with a selection of local, Taiwanese, German and Italian machinery, suited to different-size production runs. All the furniture is flat-pack and the company has a standard range of about 300 models and also makes to customer requirements.
The US customers buy about 10 models in volume and HeveaPac ships about 50 or 60 containers a month to that market alone, out of a total shipment of around 200 containers a month to all markets.
“What we offer is ‘affordable’ furniture,” said Mr Yoong. “Most customers buy it at the supermarket on impulse, take it home and assemble it and the next day they come back for another piece.”
HeveaPac employs senior staff with experience of the market such as Mr Peh Ju Chai, executive director responsible for the company’s sales and marketing, who has been in the business for 10 years.
Mr Yee Kong Yin is general manager of the company and brings years of experience in the speaker cabinet making industry. He was able to design the production line from scratch to operate in the most efficient way.
“We will continue to diversify in terms of products, possibly using different surfacing materials,” said Mr Yee. “For instance, we went from coated paper to PVC. We also use some solid wood components and may increase this content.
“Our base product is particleboard but we have incorporated other products in our designs and will continue to do so.”
For designing the new furniture ranges, HeveaPac employs eight experienced autoCAD designers and 10 sample makers. There is a separate area in the factory dedicated to the making of prototypes, such as hollow core panels for light weight, with particleboard frames and thin MDF faces.
The company offers a prototype service within 24 hours with a sample being air-freighted to the client, or digital pictures sent, for evaluation.
The nine packing lines at the factory can pack the furniture in the customers’ own packaging, made locally, and bar code it with a stock reference if required.
Port Klang is not far away and provides a good facility for exports. For local markets, HeveaPac has a fleet of 10 covered, five-tonne trucks, mainly for delivery to customers in the Klang Valley.
The paper foil lamination line applies PvaC glue by roller and woodgrain foils generally have a weight of 30g/m2, while for lighter coloured/plain papers, 40-45g/m2 is the norm. For applications such as TV stands, a PVC foil is often used.
As for cutting the panels to size, no expense is spared in terms of machinery, explained Mr Yoong, because square, straight edges are vital. Seven Holzma panel sizing saws are used 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure they pay their way.
“The selection of equipment is very important for us,” said the managing director. “A local firm engineered some machines for drilling and boring for fastenings for small sizes at high volume, but for larger panel sizes, and for versatility, we use the Homag NBT 100 to carry out accurate horizontal drilling.” The factory has two Homag double-end tenoners to trim panels after pressing, while for routing, it has a mixture of Chung Kung, Weeke and Busellato CNC machines.
“Our success is based on our software, the consistent quality of our particleboard, just-in-time delivery and charging a ‘reasonable’ price, which allows me some profit,” concluded the managing director.
It seems that in the end, his dream did indeed come true.

Operating machinery for moulding panels

Sizing panels with one of seven Holzma panel sizing saws

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