Site:

Venture Manufacturing - Singapore
5006 Ang Mo Kio Ave. 5 405-01/12, Tech Place II, Singapore 2056

Participants:

Tan Choon Huat, General Manager

Mission and Strategy

• Venture Manufacturing was established in 1984 with venture capital. It was listed as a public company in 1992 and had revenues of $121 million in 1994, an increase of 83% over 1993.
• Some key customers include Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Sony, Compaq, Iomega, Adaptec, and Astvich. It builds complete products like bar code printers, portable printers, and global positioning satellite systems.
• Product/customer diversification is one of the key elements of Venture's strategy. Venture was one of the fastest growing electronic companies in the region with facilities in Singapore, Johore Bahru (Malaysia), Batam (Indonesia), and China.

Key Elements of Presentation

• The Singapore facility is an ISO 9002 facility located in an industrial park managed by Jurong Town Corporation, which is a government subsidized facility.
• Venture has 15 SMT lines in Singapore and 4 SMT lines in a new factory in Batam. Their lines use Fuji placement equipment with a DEK265 screener, two Fuji CP-4 chip placement machines, one Fuji IP-II module placement machine, and either a Heller 1500 or a BTU reflow oven. The lines are hard coupled and utilize NUTEK board handling equipment manufactured in Singapore. They operate at cycle time of 3 hours and achieve inventory turns of 4 for low-volume products, 30 for high-volume products.

Key Elements of Tour

• Venture provides PCBA and final product assembly services with turnkey (90% of business) and consignment (10% of business) for multiple customers at low costs. The goal is to provide cost-effective manufacturing approaches for customers while providing high-value services such as concurrent engineering, new product prototyping, and value engineering. It also provides concurrent engineering for customers to achieve the lowest possible manufacturing cost.
• Venture also provides customers prototyping support. Hosts quoted cycle times of 3-5 months from start of product to completed manufacturing release package, then 4 weeks to volume production. The company is considering establishing a prototype facility in the United States, potentially as a joint venture.
• At the time of the WTEC team's visit, 30% of Venture's labor force came from Malaysia and it was experiencing very low attrition. New operators undergo a 2-day generalized training followed by OJT for specialized operations. All employees participate in profit sharing on a quarterly basis.

Key Results

Venture is making 8 - 10% gross profit for this portfolio.

Conclusions

Venture works with GINTIC to obtain useful information in the area of shop floor scheduling, test improvements, design rules, BGA process and no-clean process. EDB has provided assistance in financing, capital and consultation.