“ An area that the government can help improve on is to better promote the use of locally-made ceramic products to domestic consumers. ”
We began as an importer of ceramic frit and pigments which we obtained from China and Taiwan. In 2005, we realised the need to establish a factory due to Indonesia’s diverse natural resources. Approximately 50% of the raw materials required to produce ceramic frit are found within Indonesia’s biodiversity. To complete the company’s factory, we utilised technology from China whereas our knowledge on the production processes enables us to maintain a stable product price. When we imported our products, we received a number of customer complaints due to inconsistency in regards to the product quality. Soon after that, we decided to stop producing pigments to better focus on ceramic frits. At the moment, Kasmaji is an ISO 9001-certified company with the capacity to manufacture 3,200 tonnes of ceramic frit. We have a subsidiary unit, PT Kasmaji Inti Utama which is the manufacturing arm of the parent company whereas Kasmaji Pratama Supplytama focuses on innovation, sales, supply chain management, and quality control measures.
We have since continued operations at our factory in East Java which includes wide-ranging machinery that we obtained in 2007. Moreover, our factory location, therefore, puts Kasmaji as the first ceramic frit-producing company in the region. Through our factory location, we are also able to better cater to our clients’ needs in addition to having more competitive transportation costs, unlike similar industry players who have factories in other regions such as West Java. Furthermore, we are the only industry player to utilise coal gas technology in Indonesia which we use to power our factory that is currently operating at full capacity. In doing so, we are able to continue catering to our market segments which encompass the middle to low market segments.
Moving forward, we are striving to provide services to our customers in the form of technical assistance which is headed by our adept engineers. Through our dedication to research and development, Kasmaji is constantly finding various ways to reduce costs so as to make Kasmaji products competitively-priced in comparison to products from China and Taiwan. At Kasmaji, we are always looking for solutions to better support the ceramics industry by offering stable prices and professional customer services which are our company’s upper-hand in the industry. In addition, we are planning to realise our corporate plan of establishing a jumbo smelter in addition to boosting our company’s production capacity up to 5,000 tonnes.
The tax amnesty programme will help boost the growth of Indonesia’s property sector which in turn helps to support the ceramics industry. Based on our experience, we have felt a significant impact from the current administration’s set of issued policies where the processing time in ports has been significantly reduced from 10 days to 1-2 days.
What we have acknowledged the local government’s commitment to support economic growth compared to previous administrations. We have also felt the effects of national infrastructure projects that have helped our company to reduce logistics as well as transportation costs and time.
An area that the government can help improve on is to better promote the use of locally-made ceramic products to domestic consumers. We believe that this can be done by better understanding the nuances of ceramics industry players. It is important to note that our competitors are foreign players whereas Kasmaji is the sole local company in Indonesia’s ceramic frit manufacturing sector.
We continue to accomplish our main mission that was created in 2005 which is to find a range of solutions that will enable Kasmaji to make available products that are competitively-priced and of high-quality standards. As such, we rely heavily on our research and development department and we also apply the regulations set forth under the ISO 9001: 2008 certification in regards to quality management system. Our goal is to ensure that we do not receive any customer complaints and to provide swift, efficient solutions.
Additional services that we offer include troubleshooting assistance and design creations. In terms of previous innovations, we have begun manufacturing sodium silicate which can be found in textiles, iron casting, and ceramic products.
We have not seen much impact from the regional partnership given that Indonesia has imposed a zero-percent import tariff scheme for our industry. Previously, we tried exporting our products, however, given our full production capacity, we were unable to continue with such plans. If the market demand for ceramic frit remains relatively strong as it is now, we will look into building additional 1 or 2 smelters so as to cope with exports. Among the target export markets, Kasmaji is highly interested in entering markets in India, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
We welcome any investors willing to partner with us as we are interested in export and joint venture opportunities. Given our upcoming plans for a new factory, we will need the technology from our partner to support our expansion. Longstanding experience in product exports as well as far-reaching market network are additional aspects that we are looking for in a potential business partner.
Through innovation, Kasmaji Group will always provide competitively-priced products of the best quality while also anticipating the needs of our customers. At the core, Kasmaji strives to achieve quality as reflected in our company’s motto.