Project News

The Local Working Group (LWG) for the rattan furniture industry in Palu City has prepared a standard operation procedure (SOP) for rattan furniture production to deal with the issues such as low quality caused by an inadequate treatment during the primary processing of rattan materials and inconsistent quality management. LWG has been extending the production process audit to the five willing producers in accordance with the SOP. Seven officers from Provincial Dinas and Palu City Dinas, consisting of LWG members and shindan-shi, have been periodically visiting the workshops of the producers to extend the audit, thereby inspecting whether their production practices conform to the SOP and then providing necessary technical guidance. The SOP prescribes the work process and methods which take care of the existing capacity of the producers and equipment used by them. However, the audit still reveals non-conformities such as insufficient finishing of sanding, poor jointing among the member frame-parts. LWG has been tackling with quality improvement through further proposal and provision of support activities and field guidance, while feed-backing the audit results to the producers.

In parallel, LWG has been also extending the promotional support in view of dispelling the negative perception held among the consumers that the locally-made rattan furniture is cheap, poor in quality, and thus for use of lower-income segment. Promotional facilitations include the exhibitions to display the sample products made along the SOP, PR of such sample products through TV media, and awareness-raising to consumers by distributing the flier with check-points at buying quality rattan furniture.

Inspired by this activity, Provincial Dinas decided to apply the SOP preparation and associated production process audit as a tool for quality improvement support to other industries starting from the next year. By ensuring the periodic visit to the producers through such a SOP-based audit, LWG expects to provide more effective supports derived from more intensive communication between the government and industries as well as improve their product quality.

Production process auditing by LWG