“Delivery or pick-up?”
I (Mr. Taniguchi, CEO) visited a local cutting die manufacturer. I found that the upgrade of the transportation infrastructure hasn’t caught up to the rapid economic development in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. They also seem to be in trouble with deliveries in all industries because of the heavy traffic jam.
Indonesia with a population of 250 million is the fourth largest in the world. They have been achieving high economic growth. Therefore, they have been expanding the production of corrugated cartons in order to raise the standard of living.
Jakarta die board factories have introduced the laser beam machine in place of a jig saw for the rotary die as well as the flat bed die to deal with the increasing orders.
There are quite a few very sudden orders.
Some customers place an order faxing a handwritten drawing with rough sizes or only a handwritten picture of the box they want to produce. In such cases the diemaker has to make a formal precise drawing first. It is so much work, but the time is short.
A bigger problem than the short delivery time is cutting-die delivery.
There is always a lot of traffic in the city and it is not uncommon to take an hour to drive three kilometers.
The solution they came up with is offering two options, normal delivery or pick-up. Customers have to pay for the delivery cost with normal delivery. However, if they choose to take the products from the store on their own, they can receive a markdown for the purchase. On the other hand, as the railway system in Indonesia supported by Japanese ODA grows, some are considering carrying small wooden patterns by train. On the right is a picture of people in Jakarta commuting by an old Chiyoda Subway line train from Tokyo.
