Vinda Group Southeast Asia (Vinda SEA), a unit of Hong Kong-listed Vinda International, officially launched the construction of its regional headquarters with a groundbreaking ceremony.

Located on a 27-acre site, the state-of-the-art regional headquarters will comprise a double-story manufacturing plant with raw material warehouse, a finished goods warehouse, the Vinda Innovation Centre and a six-story administration block to be implemented in phases, in line with Vinda’s five-year plan. The investment of more than half a billion ringgit over the next five years in multiple projects to set up the Vinda regional hub represents Vinda’s commitment to Malaysia and to the state of Selangor.

Vinda SEA president Su Ting Nee said at the groundbreaking ceremony that the regional headquarters will not only centralize expertise and high-value activities in Malaysia, but also make the group globally competitive through the use of the latest technologies and processes with automation used where possible. Vinda SEA also anticipates that these changes will increase capacity by more than 20% when the facilities are fully in operation.

Examples of the automation that are planned include automated storage and retrieval system, automatic raw material supply to production lines, pre-selection of finished goods to be loaded and a fully automated first-in first-out system. The automation and integration will also help to reduce the carbon footprint, which is in keeping with the company’s sustainability policy.

She said a combination of factors made Malaysia a natural choice as Vinda’s regional hub. “Malaysia offers stability, first-class infrastructure and multilingual and multicultural talents that are crucial for business sustainability. Coupled with our strong presence in Malaysia, it was an obvious decision for Vinda to set up our regional hub and Innovation Centre here to support our continuous growth expansion in Southeast Asia,” Su adds.

The regional hub will develop, manufacture, and/or market four different product categories, namely, baby care, incontinence care, feminine care and tissue products.  Drypers, Tena, and Libresse are currently the market leaders, while Vinda Deluxe is seeing strong growth momentum in the markets since the 2017 launch. This facility will serve mainly the Southeast Asian market, and support sales to more than 25 countries, with Malaysia being the strongest market.

Besides being the regional hub for Vinda International’s activities in Southeast Asia, including support for sales, technology, marketing and finance functions, the headquarters will house the Vinda Innovation Centre, the only one outside China.

The Vinda Innovation Centre has full in-house capabilities with a broad set of experts for innovation, product development, and marketing. The center will also follow strict international standards for product development consistent with practices followed by Vinda China and Essity, which is the majority shareholder of Vinda International Holdings Limited.

The new facility will bring together the enabling technologies at every stage of the supply chain to increase efficiency and productivity while lowering costs. At the same time, Vinda SEA will be upskilling its workforce and vendors to meet the requirements of the new technologies, which would also benefit the whole ecosystem of the personal-hygiene industry in the country. Local talent development will be prioritized, and the new facilities will provide more job opportunities for the local community.

In line with Vinda’s five-year plan, the first phase is expected to be completed in 2021, when the warehouse will also be operational. The second phase is expected to be completed by 2023, with manufacturing facilities and the Innovation Centre to be in operation by then. Together, all these components encapsulate a state-of-the art facility with the capability and efficiency of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.