Memories of Stoke-on-Trent people - Ken
Green
Ken Green
A
Life in the Ceramic Tile Industry
section 16
previous: 1978/1982
Mazircon; Carnival Ceramics
Next: Training
and Familiarisation of Chinese Delegations (1987-88)
Hong
Kong (1982-84) | Interkiln (1984-86)
Hong Kong
In February
1982 I was contacted by a firm of London based management consultants.
They invited me to apply for a position with the Hong Kong Electric Group
in order to install, commission and run a ceramic tile plant in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong
Electric first generated electricity in 1899.
The power was used almost entirely, in those early days, for lighting,
there being little load during daylight hours.
In order to help provide a daylight load, a company called Fortress was
formed to retail electric fans. As
the years went by, more electrical items were added, and more shops were opened.
The era of “fitted kitchens” had started in the 70’s and by 1982
Fortress was the largest supplier of fitted kitchens in south Asia and the
Middle East. Fitted kitchens and
ceramic tiles go together like peaches and cream.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that the Hong Kong agents of tile plant
equipment suppliers should point out to Fortress that; the volume of their tile
purchases equaled the production output of a small tile plant.
They did not, of course, point out that the necessary variety of
purchases was quite out of keeping with the plants they proposed.
I
was much attracted to the idea of working and living in the Far East.
Following some initial interviews with the London consultants, they
asked me to assist in an appraisal of the project.
There was an obvious conflict of interest in me so doing, but I
attempted to remain objective. One
of the consultants and I made a couple of trips to Italy to visit the
equipment suppliers, submitted our report and, shortly afterwards, the project
was given the go-ahead.
I
arrived in Hong Kong in August 1982, to be joined by my wife a month or so
later. In our case the children
had grown up; but we had left home. A
short period was spent in a hotel before we occupied a new, well-equipped
house at Hong Lok Yuen, near to Tai Po in the New Territories.
The factory was to be built nearby, but at the time of my arrival,
there was only a bare patch of land reclaimed from the sea to mark the
position. I needed to drive along 35km of winding roads and tunnels in
and between the New Territories and Hong Kong Island to reach my office.
The journey took me through bustling central Hong Kong and through
quiet rural areas. I enjoyed it;
it was a different world. Things
are much different now, there are excellent multi-lane highways and modern,
clean and comfortable public transport systems.
I had not
been in Hong Kong very long; when I discovered that no clays or other raw
materials had been secured or even investigated.
The London consultants’ report, in which my name was enjoined, stressed
the prior proving of raw materials and tailoring the plant to their properties.
The sharp salesmanship and subsequent obfuscation of a Hong Kong agent
had temporarily fooled normally cautious businessmen. He had led them to believe that one just needed to extract
materials from any of several locations in the neighbouring Guangdong Province,
feed them into the tile plant and all would be well. If only !
“A messenger bearing bad news is rarely popular” and, at first, this
messenger was no exception to that maxim. There
was a lot of work to be done.
To put
matters into financial perspective, the Fortress Ceramics project was pretty
small beer for the Hong Electric Group but they certainly did not like the
situation.
Welko
Industriale SPA of Italy was the main supplier of equipment and the main
contractor to Fortress Ceramics. This
was the one good thing in an otherwise difficult situation.
Welko proved to be helpful, flexible, technically competent and
experienced. Changes were made to
the plant to give more flexibility. Welko
staff, Welko’s HK agent and I started an intensive search for ceramic raw
materials. I faxed Graham Gould
of English China Clays, appraised him of the situation and he came out to Hong
Kong a few days later. ECC were
interested in entering the Chinese ceramic raw materials business.
A lot of work was done before ECC’s lawyers pointed out that an
existing agreement with the Chinese for paper production precluded
co-operation with anyone else. I
then contacted Keith Sykes of Watts, Blake and Bearne.
He was also interested, equally helpful, and a co-operation ensued.
The
next two years, ‘82/’84, were spent finding the necessary raw materials in
mainland China and examining and proving them at Welko Industriale’s
facilities in Spino d’Adda, Italy. The
work necessitated a lot of travel in the Guangdong Province and between Hong
Kong, Italy and the U.K.
The
purchase of glaze materials had also to be decided.
Before leaving U.K., I had done some work on this with Bob.E.Price, Group
Manager of Ferro Enamels, Wombourne, Staffordshire.
Ferro intended to install a glaze production plant close to the tile
plant in Tai Po. The building was
erected and some equipments had been delivered to site.
However, when the strictness of Hong Kong’s pollution controls were
appreciated, Ferro moved their operation to Taiwan.
The glaze business eventually went to Italian suppliers.
My contract
with Fortress Ceramics was for three years.
I left after two years, in September 1984.
The main technical work had been completed and it remained for the
factory to achieve the required sales level.
It had become obvious that Hong Kong Electric’s operations had little
synergy with ceramic manufacturing and they had become disenchanted with their
ceramic tile venture. My early
departure was made easy and terms were generous. The
plant was sold as a going concern shortly afterwards.
INTERKILN
I received a
phone call in March 1984 from Elmer Salgo who headed the Interkiln group of
companies based in Houston, Texas. Elmer
Salgo was a native of Rumania and was in Italy as a student of ceramic
technology when WW2 intervened. He
moved on to the USA and formed Interkiln in 1948.
The company was active in ceramic projects around the world. Some were simple, and some comprehensive ranging from
feasibility studies through to plant commissioning and sales. I met Elmer Salgo the following week in Hong Kong, together
with Frank Henshall of Henshall, Bamford and Partners of Stoke-on-Trent.
(Several years later, Frank’s eldest daughter and my elder son married.
They met quite independently of us.)
Frank Henshall joined Interkiln in June 1984 and I followed in September
1984.
At
that time, although based in Houston, Interkiln had the major commercial
office in London, the major technical office in Bournemouth UK and had just
opened an office in Hong Kong. The
projects being studied were: a ceramic tile plant for Labuan, Malaysia, a
tableware plant to replace an existing plant in Xiamen, China, a sanitaryware
plant for Shanghai, China and a tile plant for Shanghai, China.
The staff of Interkiln included people from Canada, Germany, Hong Kong,
Poland, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand.UK and USA.
There was, of course, continual intercourse with existing and potential
clients.
Labuan
is a 12 by 8km island off the coast of Sabah (previously known as British
North Borneo). Sabah is one of two Malaysian states, the other being
Sarawak, located in northern Borneo. I
arrived there in February 1985. I
had an idea of what to expect because I had made a weekend visit the previous
April following the meeting with Elmer Salgo.
Hans Trinkert of Interkiln was already in Labuan and within days
building construction began. Tile
making equipments from Welko Industriale of Italy were being unloaded from
containers within a few weeks. Also
included was a fine sports cycle. It
belonged to Welko Industriale’s resident engineer. Local personnel were engaged on six or twelve month contracts
for building erection and equipment installation.
From these would be recruited operatives for the ongoing tile plant.
Recruitment and training of operatives is always very important and to
be able to recruit from known people already on short term contracts is a
great advantage.
The new
company was called “Ceramica Solare”. It
was a 50/50 joint venture between Interkiln and the Sabah Economic Development
Corporation (SEDCO). Raw materials
from Labuan and Sabah had been tested and secured and the fuel was natural gas
from the large field surrounding Labuan. The
plant was to produce a limited range of tiles as dictated by sales demand and
plant flexibility. Over a period of
a few weeks I managed to visit a large number of tile outlets in Brunei, Sabah,
Sarawak, peninsular Malaysia, and Singapore to explain what we were doing.
The initial reaction was one of scepticism, which evaporated as the plant
took shape.
Troubles in
Sri Lanka had led to civil war by 1985 and had closed down much of the
country’s industry, including several tile companies.
Interkiln put me in touch with Lawrence Soosoothenain who had previously
worked for them. I checked with the
Malaysian authorities that work permits for nationals of Sri Lanka might be
granted and then flew to Colombo to meet Lawrence and interview experienced tile
plant operatives he had mustered. The
outcome was that Lawrence was appointed works manager designate and a further
five Sri Lankans were recruited on three year contracts to Ceramica Solare. Work permits were obtained and their previous experience
proved very useful. The Assistant
Finance Officer of SEDCO was Zaiton Ahmed, a Singaporean graduate accountant.
She expressed a wish to join CS. This
was, at first, resisted by SEDCO but they relented and Zaiton became the
Financial Officer of CS. and proved to be a great asset.
Furthermore, she knew the local culture and traditions, which was an
added bonus.
Luck,
timing and other circumstances all combined to bring an excellent team into
being. Good quality tiles were being produced and sold little more
than twelve months after the first containers arrived on site.
I considered myself to be most fortunate!
It was a multinational team as my brief diary entry for February 26th
1986 shows. It says: “Carlo Brioschi’s wedding.
10 nats.” Carlo Brioschi was
Welko Industriale’s resident engineer.
On that day, he and his long term partner married in Labuan.
The happy couple and their guests met later in a local restaurant.
France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka,
Taiwan and UK were all represented. Carlo
and his bride were far from home but they were with many friends.
Several
ceramic tile manufacturing units were installed in Malaysia during the 70’s
and 80’s. Their representatives met regularly in Kuala Lumpur under the
banner of the Malaysian Ceramic Industries Group (MCIG), chaired by the chief
executive of H&R Johnson Malaysia, Mustafa
Mansur. There were similar groups
in other countries of south east Asia, and together they represented a large and
expanding ceramic industry. I met many interesting people and was to again meet some of
them when expansion into China began.
previous: 1978/1982
Mazircon; Carnival Ceramics
Next: Training
and Familiarisation of Chinese Delegations (1987-88)