Flinth Industrial Park - a dream come true for Swedish investor

by Gamini WARUSHAMANA

The experience of foreign investors who did businesses in Sri Lanka during the last three decades were not pleasant due to many reasons. The war, political instability, lack of infrastructure and high cost of utilities hampered basic conditions that the investors were seeking. However, even under such dire conditions most of them continued their business in Sri Lanka because they had many comparative advantages here.

Rune Flinth

Rune Flinth the Swedish investor first invested in Sri Lanka 20 years ago and it was his company Toroid International that produced transformers in the Katunayake EPZ.

He was highly successful in his business. He began to love Sri Lanka and considered it his second homeland. Later he sold his businesses in Sri Lanka.

But he was impressed with the working environment as well as the talented and qualified work force and wanted to commence business again in Sri Lanka. Flinth Industrial Park (FIP) was the result. Flinth came with a new concept and a new model of an industrial park.

The vision of Flinth is that people should focus on what they are skilled at because no one is skilled in everything. The concept is based on Flinth's 40 years experience in business FIP provides premises, services, qualified employees, logistics, central storage facility enabling manufacturing companies to focus on production and realisation of their vision and mission.

Flinth says that the companies in the FIP are his special guests that he selected personally .

They will be supported by the specialists he has selected. He says that the nine companies in the FIP, the specialists and all the employees in the park are his Sri Lankan family and he will do everything he can to keep them happy.

Production line at Harness Solutions Pix. Chintaka Kumarasinghe

The FIP is a subsidiary of Swedcord Development AB, Sweden, owned by Rune Flinth and was inaugurated in January this year. Still the work has not been completed while some buildings are under construction.

Some companies have set up production at lower gear and are expanding gradually. Some companies are still at the planning stage of production.

The industrial park has been created to meet the highest international standards on 10 acres of land in Ranmuthugala, Kadawatha. All the buildings in the park are painted white and the Managing Director of the park Michael Thorburn said that the idea is to ensure everything is clean.

The total floor area is 20,000sqm and the administration of the FLI and other companies is housed in the park centre. The industrial park is managed by the Managing Director (Thorburn) and his staff consists of Director-Legal Affairs, Manager HR, Manager IT, Controller, Manager Sourcing, Manager General Services, Manager Finance, Manager Quality and Manager Marketing Communication. Equipped with highly qualified and professional staff in each section the FIP provides all services to the companies in the park.

A huge canteen that can cater to over 600 employees at a time provides subsidised meals for all employees of the nine companies. Thorburn said that all employees are treated equally and everyone is served at this canteen. A training centre has been set up to provide training for the employees of the companies.

Michael Thorburn

The companies in the FIP are Swedlanka International (Pvt) Ltd manufacturers of plastic components for the packaging industry, moulds for plastic injection machines and metal components. Quality Floors, provides flooring solutions as per a method developed by HTC Sweden AB, a Swedish company with a presence worldwide. Cable Solutions is a company manufacturing special customised cables for the OEM industry.

Cable Harness Solutions is specialised in cable harnessing and provides customised solutions. CaviTool is manufacturing an add-on equipment CaviGrip for injection moulding machines enabling the moulded object to be de-moulded before the cooling process is over.

This equipment increases the productivity of industries by 40 percent shortening the cycle time. AeroSense a developer and manufacturer of devices for aero industry based on transducer technology is a joint venture between AeroSense Technologies LLC, USA and Swedcord Development AB, Sweden and Sveritec Ltd, UK. Dynamic Weighing is a developer and manufacturer of weigh-in motion systems for commercial and military markets.

Metal Component Services is a company specialised in machining complex metal components using multitasking modern machine centres. Prime Packaging caters to the domestic market with plastic packaging with in-mould labelling.

Thorburn said that for the smooth functioning of the management system the FIP needed a strong IT system. We have completed hardware and networking tasks and were very selective in deciding the software solution because finally everything will depend on it.

After careful evaluation we selected IFS ERP solution as we think that it is the best for our requirements.

Administration building of the FIP

The vision of FIP is unique and IFS understood our requirements.

On the other hand the implementation of the ERP should be done hurriedly and IFS has that capacity and talented and experienced professionals.Implementation of ERP in eight companies within three months is a huge task and a dedicated team is now working here and it will be completed on schedule, Thorburn said.

At present around 200 employees are working in the FIP and Thorburn said that the number will increase to 2,000 by the end of this year. We have to be an international player in all these industries and FIP is a BOI registered export oriented company.

The whole concept is based on the trust on skilled and professional workforce in Sri Lanka at all levels. For instance at AeroSense we have highly qualified engineers and they do the same job as their counterparts in USA or UK. They will produce and design high tech products, sensors for the black boxes which are fixed in aeroplanes, he said.