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PROFILING A SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY

WHEN JOURNALIST GARRY BARKER SET OUT WITH SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR KYM VU, THE HEAD OF PROFILE CUTTING TECHNOLOGIES (PCT) JUST OUTSIDE MELBOURNE, HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT A FASCINATING STORY LAY BEHIND THE COMPANY’S METEORIC RISE TO A RANKING AS ONE OF THE TOP FIVE LASER CUTTING OPERATIONS IN AUSTRALIA.

Text: Garry Barker, Photos: Jesse Marlow

On a dark night nearly 20 years ago, a tiny, barely seaworthy boat slipped away from the mangroves lining the coast of Vietnam and headed for Thai-land. Among the 163 people on board of that twelve-meter vessel was a former South Vietnamese soldier with his wife and their eight children, among them 14-year-old Kym. The family spent five years in a refugee camp in Thailand before receiving permission to migrate to Australia. Shortly after meeting the now grown-up Kym Vu and listening to the beginnings of his story, I already know it will be an interesting one: He has come a very long way since then. Today he is co-owner and National Manager of Profile Cutting Technologies (PCT), one of Australia’s fastest-growing laser profile cutting companies, which he and a friend, Codrin Mittin, founded in 2001 (Codrin has since moved on to another enterprise, and Joe de la Cruz is now Kym’s silent partner). The company’s success in only four years in a fiercely competitive market has been nothing short of astonishing.

With its seven Bystronic systems PCT figures among Australia’s top five laser cutting companies.

Seven. The magic number – and a reminder of the questions I should be asking. And although I know that against this dramatic backdrop, my seven could easily turn into seventy, I am determined to stick to my original concept. So I fire away with the first one: “What has a company such as yours, which makes in-process products, as distinct from finished products, had to give to your customers to become so successful?”

“We are successful because we commit to excellence,” Kym replies. “PCT operates to ISO 9001 and 9002 quality assurance standards. We are always honest with our customers. We don’t tell them we can do something unless we know for certain that we can deliver what they want, precisely on specification, on time or earlier. I would rather lose a job than lose a customer. And then, above all, is the principle that precision and quality come before price.”

Kym explains all of this to me in his gravelly voice, which after 15 years still retains the distinct accents of his native Vietnam, as we sip strong espresso coffee in his small, neat boardroom in the front offices of the factory. PCT is very much Kym’s creation and has his personality stamped on most parts of it. The boardroom is plain, even spartan – a few Buddhist icons and a picture or two are about the only decoration – but comfort-able enough and businesslike. Much like Kym him-self. Throughout his progress from refugee to successful businessman, he has kept the work ethic given to him by his father. “If you don’t work, if you don’t make your customers happy, you don’t eat.”

AN IMPRESSIVE LIST OF CLIENTS

As we talk I can hear the fizz and crackle of the two big Bystronic systems on the other side of the boardroom wall, the whine of a forklift’s engine as another sheet of steel is brought in for cutting, and the rattle of the cut parts as they are collected into a bin for transport to the customer. This is a contract for an automotive accessory company mak-ing bull bars for the big four-wheel-drive vehicles that Australians love to drive. Which prompts me to ask question number two: “What kind of clients does PCT serve?”

In reply, Kym rattles off an impressive list, among them Australian Defence Industries and Tenex, the naval shipbuilders whose yard is in Williamstown. Many steel and aluminum parts cut at PCT have gone into Australia’s new missile frigates launched from that yard and into the Australian Army’s Bushmaster armored fighting vehicles. Melbourne is also the center of Australia’s automotive industry with major factories operated by General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Toyota. Kym tells me that PCT is among the companies supplying profiled parts to their accessory and parts suppliers. He adds that recently, PCT also won a major contract from the state of Victoria to supply thou-sands of Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF) pan-els that will be assembled into seating at stadiums to be built for the British Commonwealth Games to be held in Melbourne next year.

According to Kym, the MDF contract is slightly unusual. He says most of PCT’s work is in mild steel between 1 millimeter and 20 millimeters thick, stainless steel up to 12 millimeters, aluminum up to 10 millimeters, and Bisalloy in various grades up to 20 millimeters.

All of this is stocked on-site by the company and supplied from big timber racks set up in the factory alongside the Bystar and Byspeed laser cutting systems. The factory is like the boardroom: utilitarian, no-frills, dusty, a little disheveled – a place of hard work. Kym takes me around, proudly showing me the systems at work. The operators nod but remain focused on their work. This is a serious business, and pleasantries are left to the boss. For the operators, it is attention to detail.

Kym, like many successful Asian businessmen, looks on his workforce as his family. They work hard – 16 shifts per week. Everyone is involved in achieving success, from the three programmers working on the CAD drawings in the back office and preparing the data for the machines, to the operators standing with their boots in the metal dust on the cement floor watching the laser heads streak across the steel sheet.
They are, of course, Swiss lasers – a perfect segue into my third question: “With PCT in Melbourne, thousands of kilometers away from Switzerland, how have relationships been with Bystronic? And how about support?”

Nearly 1,000 jobs are handled at the two PCT locations each month. The Bystronic laser cutting systems take center stage in the manufacturing process.

STEP BY STEP TO EXCELLENCE

“Support to us has been excellent,” answers Kym. “In the past, when we had only one laser cutting system, it was a learning curve for myself and also, I think, for LMC. There were only four Bystronic machines in the country, but LMC helped us a great deal. They are very particular about training. They sent engineers to Switzerland to qualify. We are still learning, and they are helping in that process to develop and extend our business. We do hire people with laser experience, but we prefer to train them from the ground up so they learn our ways and the principles of the company – our need for quality and performance.” LMC’s engineers also help with training, he adds. “We have gotten expert assistance from LMC’s service engineers as well as Bystronic’s people in Singapore. So, today, there are very few jobs that we cannot do.” Kym is obviously very happy with the Bystro-nic equipment he uses at PCT, so I ask him question number four: “Which of your machines would you most like to clone if you could?”

His response is immediate. “My first one, my Bystar! We began with it, it has served us extremely well, and I have a deep sentimental attachment to it. I learned a great deal with that machine. It got this company off the ground and it is still a great workhorse for us.” But having made his point about the 4-kilowatt Bystar and the solid beginnings it gave him, Kym goes on to say that, sentiment aside, his favorite system now is his 4.4-kilowatt Byspeed, commissioned in August 2004. “It has opened more and new doors and markets for us,” he says. “We now have two 5.2-kilowatt By-speed systems on order as well as two more 4.4-kilowatt Bystars. And, as we grow, there will be more still.”

“What about increased automation?” I ask, nearly slipping in my fifth question.

“I would like to have a fully automatic load-and-unload system,” says Kym. “It would cost us some money, but provided the volume of work can be achieved, it would take us to the next step in the development of our business.”

A steady stream of high-volume jobs has in the past been difficult to achieve in Australia, so PCT is working together with LMC on developing a workflow system that would collate jobs requiring similar sheets, combining work from several clients, and letting Bystronic’s software cope with the complexities.

BRANCHING OUT WITH BYSTRONIC

Question six seems an obvious follow-up at this point: “Why not offer other services, such as bending, and get a press brake?”

“We are looking at that,” Kym replies. “We are considering Bystronic’s Beyeler press brake – it’s a very good machine and one definitely in our future planning.”
Out of the four more Bystronic systems PCT has on order, two will go into a factory in Brisbane, which is their next place of expansion, and which should begin operation in October. “After that, more machines, and a factory in Sydney or, per-haps, Geelong,” says Kym.

Today PCT is among the top five laser cutting companies in Australia, but in terms of kilowattage already the biggest. “My aim is to be number one in Australia, the biggest company, and the best,” Kym declares, thus neatly answering my seventh and last question about his future ambitions for the company.
At the moment, he says, PCT’s two factories are handling nearly 1,000 jobs a month, 500-plus through Reservoir and 400-plus through Dande-nong, both just outside Melbourne.

So what about moving to bigger premises? Kym smiles. “Yes, we are thinking about that. Once I am happy with the expansion to Brisbane and then either Sydney or Geelong, we can aim at moving to-wards achieving those sorts of economies of scale, and adding value through more processes. We are always thinking and planning – and getting big-ger,” he says. Clearly, Kym Vu has not only come a long way but still has an exciting journey ahead.

Garry Barker is Technology Editor of “The Age”, one of Australia’s leading newspapers, based in Melbourne.

BystronicWorld 2/2005