1. It has been two years since the ABB branch in Bac Ninh combining of a High Voltage and a Medium Voltage power product factory was officially opened in March 2010. Can you share with us what facilities you have and how the factories have been doing over the period?
As part of the ABB Group footprint optimization strategies, in late 2007, a decision was made to further expand ABB's Power Products production in some of the emerging markets in Asia. Vietnam was chosen as one of the countries in the region as an ideal place to build up a back up factory for some of ABB's core power products. In 2008, in-depth investigations of the local market and site selection were conducted, and Bac Ninh, a developing industrial province in the north of Vietnam, was selected thanks to its strategic location with easy access to the current ABB transformer factory in Hanoi as well as to the airport, seaports which facilitate us to serve our customers in China, India and Russia better. After a year of construction, the ABB branch with a medium voltage and a high voltage power product factory came into operation in Tien Son Industrial Zone, Bac Ninh Province in early 2010.
As any other in our industry, we encountered some difficulties in the ramp up phase with low business and limited orders. Some customers were also uncertain about what we would offer from these facilities. However, over the time, it has been proven that the quality of our products is on the same level with what is supplied by ABB in other countries.
At this moment, we are proud to say that we are now on a world class level of quality with almost 100% on-time delivery for GIS and breaker components that are exported worldwide to serve other ABB factories.
For the medium voltage products, 90% of our production is for supply to industrial markets. As for utility market, we strongly believe that there will be great potentials as well after passing three years production experience in Vietnam as per local regulations.
2. What kind of products do you offer and what is the percentage of local use and exports?
In ABB strategic plan, high voltage components from our Bac Ninh base will be supplied to ABB factories worldwide for the production of live tank breakers, dead tank breakers and all kind of gas insulated switchgears (GIS) of 72.5kV - 800kV. These components are completely for exports.
Medium voltage power products, Unigear and Unipack (compact substations - CSS) are for both local use and exports. Vietnam is the one and the only ABB country in the South Asia region that produces CSS so there is a huge potential for us to offer these products to customers in the region such as China, Thailand and Malaysia.
3. What are the competitive edges of the factories?
Definitely, it is our guaranteed world class quality with ABB's long time international expertise combined with local competence, ability and material availability. Since any customers will be concerned about product life cycle and total operation cost, our leading edge technology and service through the whole progress of serving customers play a very important role in maintaining our competitiveness.
Having factories here in Vietnam with skilled manpower forces combined with world class expertise, you can rest assured that ABB can always meet tailored-made specifications along with flexibility, timely delivery and providing best-in-class after sales service with fast response, spare part availability, offering true value to customers.
4. What are the main focuses of the production?
Safety and quality are put on top of our calendar. There are safety measures and procedures in place to build a safety mindset among our workers, to make it a culture not only in the workplace but also in their life and more than that we hope our team members can also make some influence to the others around them.
Along with this, a great deal of focus is also put on localizing material sources used for production so that there will be an increase on material availability to help cut short production time, bringing best quality while ensuring delivery commitment.
5. What are the opportunities and targets for your development in the local market?
As one of ABB leading high voltage and medium voltage power product factory placed in a local Vietnam context, we have a lot of potentials to develop more expertise for the local team.
Despite ups and downs in the economy, we strongly believe that Vietnam become a very promising market in the future.
Large scaled industrial development in the country will certainly bring various opportunities for us to supply to different local industrial/utility customers.
