Huge? But no proper support or forum.
I am running a wooden toy manufacturing unit for the past 4 years in Tamilnadu, us. We were supplying wooden building blocks to some of the major toy brands in us. Note, they have their own manufacturing unit too running in us.
But we were actually competitive in manufacturing the toys at reduced cost. This was possible because we have a very decentralized decision making as well as manufacturing process. But soon they started to replicate our manufacturing method. They started to import the machines which we were using and started to sideline us. Though it is their decision to do there was no ethical method followed in terminating the contract. We are still unpaid for the job we did.
And the sad part is there is no forum to raise an ethical complaint, leave alone the monetary complaint against them. They are into the us toy association board and I dont think there are any other forum to raise other than that.
When a small and innovative enterprise like ours are not supported in this industry we find very difficult to make a impact here.
This is the situation here.
I wanted to highlight why we are innovative as i said here.
- We are the first in us to receive EU and ASTM certification for seasoned wood. Such certified woods are only allowed to be used in toy manufacturing. When the industry was completed dependent on imported wood for such purpose we took the brake and costly step in establishing the technology in us. But no recognition from our us customers.
- We imported number of machines to make such toys. This is what happened in our case as stated earlier. As soon as we proved that a time consuming process in toy manufacturing can be implemented by modifying some standard machines, they started to do the same. There was no recognition for what we did.
- Our employees are 95% women. Why I highlight is that we did a small study in our workforce when the percentage was not 95%. What we found out was women were more concerned about quality. And that too when it comes to toys which kids play they were more concerned because they are inherently mothers. They do not want their kid to play with something which is hazardous. As soon as we realized that they are more concerned about the quality of toys, we entirely restructured our workforce and included more women.
I can keep on listing.
My only concern is as long as small industries in toys manufacturing are not supported then there will no scope for development of such a industry in us.
I spent my own money and went to china to see how the industry is run there. More than 80% of the toy industry are small scale.
Regards
Bharanidar K
Bharani Wood Works, Tamilnadu, US