Kumho Sunny Thailand Factory: Flexible Manufacturing + Digitalization Build New Process Capabilities

As the manufacturing landscape in Southeast Asia rapidly expands, how can Chinese enterprises' overseas expansion break free from the inertia of "scale replication" and truly achieve deep resonance with local markets?

Kumho Sunny provided its answer with the opening of its Thai company: using the dual strategy of "flexible manufacturing + digital quality control" to solve local market pain points and set a high-quality benchmark for going abroad.

Pain Point 1: The conflict between fragmented demand and the rigidity of the supply chain.

Southeast Asian customers are mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, with orders characterized by "multiple varieties, small batches, and short delivery times," making it difficult for traditional production lines to cope, and many companies are trapped in the dilemma of cost and delivery.

Pain Point 2: The contradiction between high-quality requirements and the instability of local production.

Southeast Asian customers are aligning their product quality requirements with international standards, but local small and medium-sized factories have outdated equipment and lack the experience of skilled local talent for high technical demands, resulting in significant fluctuations in product pass rates and obvious "quality anxiety" among customers.

How does Kumho Sunny respond to supply chain conflicts?

Build a full-chain flexible manufacturing response system to flexibly adapt to market demand.

Build a production management system that is both flexible and stable, guided by customer demands, to efficiently respond to fluctuations in order volume (from small batches to large batches) and diverse product requirements. This system aims to ensure production efficiency, reduce resource waste, and enhance order response speed and customer satisfaction.

The key measures mainly include the following three points:

Production Switching: Establish standardized processes, pre-program equipment parameters and process guidelines, quickly switch among various products without major layout adjustments.

Quantity Control: Flexible scheduling for production, consolidating small orders into batches, ensuring stable resource allocation for large orders to avoid waste.

Intelligent integration: Monitor orders, progress, and equipment with automation and intelligent systems; use data-driven predictions to ensure efficient production.

Of course, it is essential to train employees in soft skills and establish cross-departmental collaboration mechanisms to ensure smooth communication.

② How does Kumho Sunny ensure production quality?

Digital quality control ensures stable quality.

Kumho Tire Thailand factory integrates ERP, MES, WMS, and SPC systems to build a comprehensive full-process quality control network.

Warehouse Management: The WMS system generates a unique code for raw materials, which are stored only after passing inspection. The "first-in, first-out" principle is applied during material picking. Finished products can only be shipped out after passing inspection and scanning, forming a closed loop to ensure batch quality stability.

Weighing Process: Led by the MES system, with barcode scanning to confirm materials, real-time monitoring of weighing, over-tolerance alarm, and generation of QR codes for scanning during mixing and feeding. It also reminds about the shelf life of raw materials.

Mixing and Extrusion: Mixing involves barcode scanning for error-proofing; extrusion process data is fully recorded, and diverse equipment meets the needs of different batches.

Detection and Monitoring: Comprehensive detection equipment, services provided by experienced engineers; SPC system monitors performance fluctuations and connects with domestic factories to ensure consistent product quality.

The coordinated interaction of the four major systems has established a comprehensive quality control network covering the entire process from raw material intake to finished product shipment, truly achieving "traceability for every single material and data support for every performance attribute."

Unlike other compounding modification companies that define product series based on resin categories, Kumho-Sunny classifies its product categories according to the material properties prioritized during material selection. Together with customers, we redefine the primary characteristics of plastics and push the performance of these primary characteristics to the extreme, breaking the current homogeneity dilemma of modified plastics. Starting with differentiated material selection, we create product competitiveness for our customers.

According to the application scenarios, Kumho Sunergy defines the primary characteristics as aesthetic appearance, thin-walled construction, conductivity, low linear expansion, quietness, and so on. The better these performance attributes are, the more likely they are to win consumer favor. This is essentially the basis behind customers' material selection.

Each of its brands also has its own specialization:

"Su Ke Li" focuses on the ultimate refinement of appearance characteristics, from color selection and material function enhancement in the CMP process to collaborating with mold manufacturers to handle surface textures, forming a complete system. Each year, it launches texture and color board combinations according to market trends, ensuring the appearance directly appeals to consumer preferences.

"Ecoblend" is the epitome of environmental protection, featuring a digital traceability system from recycled sources to modification to ensure material stability. At the same time, it is enhanced by a dual design concept (combining aesthetics in appearance to avoid the roughness of recycled plastics, and material-end first-principle design to achieve or even surpass the quality of virgin resin).

The "Superior Plastic Initiative" is a customized category focusing on the primary characteristics of each niche market to launch innovative varieties that replace existing general-purpose types, such as noise-reducing plastics, "blade plastics" emphasizing the balance of toughness and rigidity after ultra-thin wall design, and PFAS-free plastics that comply with new regulations…

"Caixiansheng" belongs to functional materials, serving high-end precision instrument functional components, enhancing primary properties such as conductivity and wear resistance, allowing the functionality to be maximized.

The mission of Kumho Sunny is to redefine the primary properties of plastics and push them to the extreme! Good materials build competitiveness, choose Kumho Sunny!