TEXCO Tiny Parts Big Volumes

Mr Fung, can you tell us more about the origins of your family-owned company, Texco?
a couple of years. Then I returned to Canada and worked for the Foundation again. In 1986, the other partners at Texco wanted to sell their shares to my father and my father asked me if I would come back from Canada to run the business, so I decided to start a new career heading the family
business.

Since then, many changes have taken place, can you tell us the key steps leading
to Texco’s present position?
It is a matter of demand and supply; material supply was not adequate in the 80’s. Our main materials were imported from Japan, Taiwan, Europe and the US. There was always an insufficient supply of materials with a long planning process, and too many unpredictable and complicated situations. In order to secure our material supply, we teamed up with a Japanese supplier to set up a knitting plant. Later we discovered that the dyeing supplier we partnered with could not meet our requirements, and that’s when we started our own dyeing and finishing plant. Later, in order to cope with our customers’ requests for global sourcing and speedy service, we decided to put factories closer to our customers and that is how we started setting up factories overseas.

How big is the company today and what is the actual product portfolio?
Texco Group comprises three core areas of business: hook and eye tape, warp knitted fabrics and dyeing & finishing services. With factories located in China, Thailand and the head office in Hong Kong, as well as a branch office
in the US, Texco employs over 1000
people in total. In late 2018, a new
factory will open in Vietnam. Products
are supplied for the North American,
European and Asian markets.

How has Texco kept its edge in such a challenging market?
We have been keeping our edge by focusing on development and service. As for development, we continually follow and keep up with the trend, mood, and functionality (for example, sportswear) of the industry. Coming to service, it is much more complicated to produce Hook and Eye tape than it looks. It involves knitting, dyeing, finishing, sewing, and cutting. In order to keep and improve the service to our customers, automation and lean manufacturing has to be applied regularly.  As a manager, you have surely had to make hard decisions, what has been the hardest? Following our customers’ strategies requires  certain investment and changes. Certain larger investments may have certain risks that I have to consider, for example, hardware investment or even opening a new factory. I also need to consider how changes may affect different areas and cause unpredicted results, like matters to do with human resources, production flow and so on.