Fong’s Industries Group: Synergy at its best
Fong's Group established in 1963 has the leading position in the global textile machinery industry with a comprehensive range and brands of textile dyeing and finishing machinery. The group comprises of Fong’s National Engineering Co., Xorella AG, Then Machinen GMBH and Monfort Fong’s. Fong’s Group strives to bring the most innovative technologies and solutions for their global customers. Fong’s Group had an impressive display at Shanghaitex with all the companies present in full strength. The Fong’s focus at Shanghaitex was cost and energy savings and ecology. PTJ Editor Nadeem Mazhar spoke to Walter S. W. Leung, Director Sales Marketing from Fong’s, Kurt Mueller, Area Sales Director, Then and Patrick Zuppiger, Head of Sales Xorella on this occasion. Following excerpts from these interviews clearly demonstrate the far reaching vision of Fong’s.Ed.
	Alex W. Y. Wan, Chief Executive Officer, Fongs Group.

Walter S. W. Leung, Director Sales Marketing, Fong’s
How has the strategy of acquisitions worked out for Fongs?

From the perspective of product portfolio the acquisitions of Fong’s have been the right move strategy that defied everyone’s expectation. The founder of the company and now the Chairman of the Fong Group Mr. Fong always aimed at the total solution of all kinds of wet processing, whether batch or continuous or fabric or yarn. After all these acquisitions we have been able to turn ourselves into a one stop solution provider of all kinds of wet processing. 

In terms of sales and marketing I would say that this move has already has started paying dividends.  For example, our group company in Germany Then is now acting as the distributor of Fong’s products in the European countries.  Through joint marketing efforts, Then strategy has put Fongs in different corners of Europe and Germany.  Then will provide the technical backup through our very competent technical team in Germany.  They will develop the whole project technically and at times some projects combine the technologies of Fong’s Group. For example, Then will provide the dispensing and the air flow systems, while Fongs from Hong kong will provide the yarn dyeing machines and Xorella the yarn conditioning systems. This synergy works perfectly for the benefit of our customers world wide.

China has been criticized in the past for ignoring the environmental issues. What has changed in this respect?

I think the main concern for textile industry worldwide is related to sustainability, particularly from the environmental point of view. It has been already proven that earlier investments in China are creating adverse effects for environment. In fact  the Chinese government now realizes, that it cannot afford to ignore the environmental issues any more. Therefore, energy savings and environmental savings are now the key policies of the Chinese Government which they are implementing very strongly.  If a dyeing factory is buying the stenter then it should be accompanied with a heat recovery system. These are the new investment guidelines provided to the textile players in China. Dyeing with high liquor ratio 1:15 is also no longer acceptable.  We expect the Chinese industry to follow these measures stringently and that is where Fong’s will continue to provide the best possible and innovative solutions.

Kurt Muller, Area Sales Director, Then  Maschinen Gmbh
In your opinion how tangible is the change in the thinking of the Chinese entrepreneur?

It is really very profound that the focus of the entrepreneur in China has shifted from the investment cost to the running cost of operations.  This change has been relatively new as in the last two years, we sold more then airflow machines than hydraulic machines in China.  Then airflow has become the most popular piece dyeing machine in China. Savings per kg are remarkable by Then’s airflow technology. Such savings are essential for sustainability as we can prove easily, that it takes only a matter of months or an year to offset the difference between our technology and the traditional hydraulic one. 

How have you been able to compete in terms of price with the traditional hydraulic machines?

We have undertaken a massive cost cutting program in our manufacturing to keep our price competitive.  Now, some of  our machines have come out of the factories in the Southern China, they are no more expensive than any hydraulic machines from our competitors. I believe that Then being part of Fong’s Group has been completely a win win situation. 

Mr. Fong was very far sighted when he made these decisions some years back. At that time people were skeptical of his moves. He has certainly been proven right.  You can see at the stand the whole environmental issue is also becoming a major investment issue and it is expected to be the same issue in other markets in Asia, such as Pakistan, India and Bangladesh as well.

Boby K.P. Loo
General Manager, Goller Textile Machinery (Schenzen) Company Ltd.

How successful has  Goller been in China as part of Fongs Group?

Goller became a member of Fong’s group in 2006. We had successful has set up our production plant at Schenzen -the same location as Fongs and started operations in April 2007. We have already sold twenty machines in China and our aim is to further reduce the cost of the production, a benefit is also transferred to the customer, whose investment cost will be reduced ultimately. 

What about new product developments?

The R&D function of Goller remains in Germany, as new products are developed in Germany, but produced and tested in China. Our structure is like a triangle, Boby Loo elaborated, the  production and related resources are based in China, production management based in Hong Kong and the cutting edge technology from Germany completes the triangle.

In the global textile market the competition is very intense, and that is why it is very important to lower our cost of manufacturing, which will also help our end users to get the same cost advantage at production site. These days end users in textiles expect a fast payback on their investment (2-3 years), which used to be 10 years in the past.

In  China the textile market is changing rapidly.  It is difficult to foresee what to expect in the future, that is why when the investment decision is based on the savings in energy, water chemicals, these savings have to be quantified and ofcourse the key issue is to improve the quality. With our present structure, we are ideally positioned to provide all that to our customers and that is why during last two years, our market share has increased and in future, we plan develop new products  to help customers achieve their objectives.

Patrick Zuppiger
Head of Sales, Xorella AG

Would you comment on your experience of being part of Fong’s Group?

I can say that our experience with the incorporation of Xorella in the Fongs group has been very good. We have very good relations and we work very closely together. We are looking to fortify synergies in the product lines and in distribution and technologies, in fact all the sectors related to the machinery business.

In the future I can see that we will work even closer together maybe in terms of marketing and sales related areas, in addition to engineering of machines and technology in terms of  energy saving, water saving and to provide to the customer best value available in the market.

Do you have any developments specific to Chinese market?

In terms of development, we do not differentiate between China or any other market. The needs of the customers are the same everywhere and the products are the same.  Focus is on the energy and water savings.

We launched a new steaming system at ITMA Munich which reduces power consumption upto 30% compared to the conventional technology available in the market. 

At last ITMA Asia last year, we launched a new vacuum system that is water free.  For a spinning machine 4-5 million liters of water per year are needed and we are still holding up the lowest cost per kilo ratio treated on our machines, which is much appreciated by our customers. Furthermore, in some cases the shortest payback that is not even one year.

We shall continue to provide our customers worldwide with the solutions that will help them remain competitive and successful.