Sometimes it takes months of planning for the highly trained specialists of Chasen Logistics to relocate a company; other projects require just 24 hours’ notice. But no matter how large or small the job, it’s the extra services the company provides to the wafer fabrication, LCD display, solar panel and other electronics manufacturing industries that separate Chasen Logistics from the rest of the field. Managing Director Justin Low Weng Fatt chats to The CEO Magazine about his 20-year role with the company and his vision for the future.
The CEO Magazine: How much has the company changed since you joined in 1996?
Justin: It has slowly evolved from a partnership set up to provide labour to assist manufacturing companies packing up for relocation, to a limited company recognised as a relocation solutions specialist moving machinery and equipment from point A to point B around the world.
What about changes in technology?
From a company that relied heavily on manpower to move very heavy equipment and machine tools, we now use a variety of technology-based, specialised equipment.
What have been the biggest challenges you have had to overcome?
During the economic crisis in 2009, a few of our key customers shut down or downsized, reducing our job orders. We kept our workforce engaged with a retraining program, but when weheard that a few of our key customers wanted to move out their primary manufacturing machinery, we increased our capacity and revamped our warehouses into humidity-controlled fully air-conditioned facilities to store their sensitive machinery.
Then the Singapore government reduced the quota of foreign labour, and as much as we want to employ more Singaporeans, not many want to do this kind of hard, menial work. The reduced quota policy compelled us to think out of the box in overcoming the manpower shortfall through the use of labour-efficient material-handling tools.
What puts Chasen Logistics ahead of the competition?
Our distinguishing factor is our niche service capability providing a complete package in terms of project management and a trained and disciplined workforce imbued with a safety culture. In Malaysia and in Vietnam, we offer a value-added feature by having our own engineering teams there to help our customers install and hook up their plants prior to commissioning. We introduced another value-added service to a Japanese OEM in 2014 when we became the first logistics company to build a Class 100K clean room. The Facilitised Refurbishment & Testing Centre (FRTC) was built to refurbish used machinery tools from the semiconductor industry. The tools were then handled by our relocation team, which delivers them to their designated locations.
With our demonstrated abilities in providing customised value-added services to our discerning customers, we are able to clinch the projects away from our competitors despite the higher premium in pricing.
“Our distinguishing factor is our niche service capability providing a complete package in terms of project management and a trained and disciplined workforce imbued with a safety culture.”
Which countries do you service overseas?
We’ve relocated manufacturing plants from Puerto Rico, Idaho (US), Switzerland, Israel, Japan and South Korea into Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, China and Czech Republic.
How do you transport all this machinery, and what has been your biggest operation to date?
On the ground, we employ air-ride suspension container trucks to transport sensitive machinery from point to point using specialised equipment to move the machines from the loading bay to the factory floor. Our exclusive business partners like Eng Lee Logistics and Moh Seng Transport have supported us for more than 10 years.
Our biggest operation to date would be the chartering of a Russian Ilyushin Il-96 and a Boeing 747-400 to freight 104 crates from Idaho and off-loaded onto air-ride suspension trucks at Senai Airport before being transported to 2 different manufacturing plants in Johor and Singapore.
How sensitive is some of the equipment you move?
Semiconductor equipment is always very sensitive, and individual sensitivity is measured by the shock or impact to the machine with a shockwatch. The shockwatch has an indicator to measure the shock and tilt ranged between 1G and 25G, with the lowest number being the most sensitive.
We must ensure that our riggers have gone through a comprehensive training program before they can handle machines with a 1G sensitivity. As specialist movers, they have to know which part can be touched or moved and which part cannot be touched, and are on top of the standard operating procedure during the preparation stage. Then 1 to 2 days before the move-in date, they have a project briefing before a final tool box meeting just prior to execution.
How important is culture to the business? How do you instil this in your employees?
In 2014, we introduced our Shared Values: Profit-Mindedness, Management Excellence, Teamwork, Integrity, Respect and Commitment — all values derived from our practice in
past years, but conceptualised for all our employees to serve as work ethos in their daily operations.
Safety is also practised by every employee, whether they are working in the office or at the job site, because an excellent safety record reflects our discipline and is critical when we market ourselves.
What has been an enormously difficult project?
The toughest one would be the Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) project, which required equipment to be delivered underground as deep as 6 levels below. The project team surveyed and studied the terrain for the deployment of the heavy cranes before hoisting and lowering the equipment into the pits.
What is your overall vision for the future of the company?
Our vision, driven by our Shared Values, is to be able to integrate all our services into a one-stop shop for our customers. Ultimately, we want to be able to design and build a plant, coordinate and freight the machinery from its source to the new plant, move-in, install and hook up the machinery, and manage the commissioning of the plant as well.
We also want to expand our Chasen branding to become a leading global integrated service provider. In 2015, we established an overseas marketing office in California’s Silicon Valley, which has promoted our niche capability to the US, already clinching a multimillion-dollar project in Nevada.