ADVANCE BY CHANCE

The Chinese word for ‘’crisis’’ is composed of two characters respectively meaning ‘’danger’’ and ‘’chance, good timing’’. Crystal Safety Glass faced such a situation 21 years ago.

Crystal Safety Glass is established in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and is managed by Tan Seng Huat, who opened it as glassware trading company in 1992. During the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 one of his customers who owed him money asked to offset his debt with two containers of glass. Tan knew about the possibilities of glass as construction material. Seeing the opportunity, Tan changed his business from trading glassware to trading glass. In 1998 he borrowed money from friends, moved into a rented 3,000sq ft shop lot and hired three people for his new glass operation.

Since its foundation the company has been on an uptrend. Tan now employs 300 people and the plant’s size has grown to 300,000sq ft. One more factory of 400,000sq ft will start its operations by the end of 2018. The main sales market is domestic around Malaysia, but a lot of products are exported to Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia as well.

Crystal Safety Glass is still a family business run by Frank and his sister Yi Shin, both joined the company in 2000. Their father had been preparing his children for business since they were young. Both of them put a lot of efforts in bringing the company to the next level. They found that product quality is vital as consumers’ expectations have increased over the years. They decided to move from selling large quantities of glass at cheap price and invested in quality, productivity and safe working environment. The solution to reach this level was offered by LiSEC in 2013.

Investment budget has always been a major factor in making business decisions at Crystal Safety Glass, that is why the management decided to solve problems step by step. 2014 they bought a LiSEC automatic cutting line and crane system PKL.

Before that employees at Crystal Safety Glass were doing both processes manually. After the installation, cutting and loading operations became simple and fast. The total glass breakage during unloading was reduced to nearly zero. At the same time the working environment was improved as well. Before the LiSEC loading system was installed,  there were four to five body injuries every quarter, now there are nearly none.

‘’Simple operation controlled by software ensure that there are no errors in glass selection and cutting dimension. The software optimisation ensures the precision of our output. The high reliability of LiSEC machines made our overall operations smooth and efficient.”

Thanks to the highly automated loading system, Crystal Safety Glass was able to cut down the manpower per operation from ten to three people, which helps the company in terms of investment return in the long run. Besides that workforce was transformed from low skill to higher skill workers.

‘’The glass industry is changing very fast in Malaysia. The market has become very demanding: on-time delivery, quality, reliability and cost competitiveness are the constant values. With LiSEC technologies we ensure our customers’ satisfaction at all time. We are still looking for innovative ways to improve our processes and efficiency by using automation and machinery. With that we can cut down much dependence on labor workforce and minimizing human error during the operation. Cooperation with LiSEC brought out breakthrough solution to realize our glass processing business value.’’

09.04.2019, Lisec GmbH