Manufacturing in Indonesia - A "Tukang Jahit" Story

The first time I was in China was in February 1995. It was my second overseas business trip. I flew to Hong Kong, stayed overnight in Hyatt Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui and then took a ferry from China Ferry Terminal in Kowloon to a remote place called Panyu in southern China. At that time, Panyu was a small town, pretty much an agricultural and fishing village. There were some similarities to Batam where I lived and worked at that time. Infrastructure in Panyu was a far cry from what it is now.

The ferry ride from Hong Kong was about 2 hours. It travelled through what I believe was Shiziyang or Shizi channel, the upper channel of Pearl River estuary. It was foggy. I recalled the strange, almost eerie, feeling as the ferry slowly travelled through the river.?

The purpose of the trip was two-fold:

1. We had a global alignment meeting about slider visual inspection criteria. Slider is a component in a read/write head in Hard Disk Drive. It’s essentially a chip sliced from silicon wafer. The alignment was among the team from Shrewsbury (MA), Batam team, and Lafe team. The Lafe factory was a long-time subcontractor of Digital Equipment Corporation for HDD read/write heads. My colleague and I were new in the industry with less than 1 year of working experience.
2. The second agenda was to benchmark Lafe, tap their experience and bring them back to the Batam factory which was newly set up and gradually building up various technology and production lines from the US.

One of the challenge we quickly learned was the Chinese productivity. The production operator speed, measured in UPH (unit per hour), was like double of what we had in Batam. Sure, Batam team was new and going through learning curve. But later we found out that even with highly-trained and matured operator, we were struggling to match the UPH of Chinese workers. I also witnessed for the first time how the workers quickly had their lunch, went back to their working table, and had a quick nap. All of them. I was impressed, or rather shocked.

?

Mind you that this story was in 1995, 30 years ago.?

?

Fast forward, China has been known as the factory of the world with unmatched product cost and an impressive ecosystem of manufacturers to the point that “everything is made in China” is not a cliche but a reality. They started with manufacturing plastic toys, assembling parts and products which were too expensive to be produced in the Western countries and Japan. Quality was low but they gradually learned and improved. Product cost remains low despite inflation in China especially labour cost in southern and coastal China, thanks to the vast ecosystem of suppliers in China.

Why am I writing this?

This is where I’d like to switch language to Indonesian.

?

Sebagai alumni ITB, saya sudah sering mendengar istilah “tukang jahit” di kalangan alumni ITB. Komentar seperti ini sudah sering saya dengar sejak awal karir saya:?

“Ah, pabrik-pabrik di Indonesia khan cuma tukang jahit”

Respon saya, sebagai insinyur yang berkecimpung di dunia manufaktur selama lebih dari 30 tahun, adalah: “Untuk menjadi tukang jahit berkualitas pun butuh waktu, pengalaman, konsistensi, disiplin dan knowledge. Menjadi tukang jahit profesional itu bukan segampang membalikkan telapak tangan”.

China sekarang menjadi top global manufacturing country dan industri manufaktur ini yang mengubah nasib mereka. Perjalanan itu sudah dimulai puluhan tahun lalu. Sektor manufaktur terbukti adalah ujung tombak dari ekonomi China dan luar biasa penting bagi mereka.

Dimana posisi sektor manufaktur di Indonesia saat ini? Apakah pentingnya sektor manufaktur masih dalam tahap wacana? Apakah kita masih menganggap rendah “tukang jahit”? Apakah sektor manufaktur masih dianggap sebelah mata oleh lulusan S1 kita?