Namson Engineering: A Vietnamese first in laser technology

When attending exhibitions such as MTA Vietnam, one can only be impressed with the amount of foreign companies investing time and money into developing their market share here in Vietnam. Even at this year’s exhibition, MTA Vietnam boasted almost 80% of exhibitors coming from oversea, which is a testament to the Vietnamese industrial development.

However, on the flip side of the coin this abundance of foreign owned companies indicates that local manufacturers of machinery are still a very rare breed. Even the Vietnamese companies in attendance at events such as MTA are predominantly acting as sales and service agents for a number of foreign brands, so it was a pleasant surprise for our IMNA Vietnamese correspondent Anthony Evans when walking around MTA Vietnam 2015 to find a local company manufacturing laser equipment for use in a variety of manufacturing applications.

Namson Technology and Engineering are Vietnamese manufacturers of laser marking, cutting, and laser engraving machines, and are one of the few local companies operating in this very competitive market. When attending MTA Vietnam, held in HCMC, Anthony caught up with Namson’s Vice Director, Mr. Bryan Dang and asked him about his company’s products and the challenges they face competing against the well-established international brands.

IMNA: Could tell our readers about your company’s history and the product you have on offer.

Bryan: Namson was established in 2002, but initially operating as distributing agents for a number of international companies such as Epilog Lasers USA and GCC lasers in Taiwan. We’re still agents for those brands and a number of others ones such as Rofin, Pryor, etc. But in 2012 we expanded into manufacturing our own CO2 and Fiber laser marking, and cutting machinesand presently have two models on offer, our Namson PowerMark C Series and the Namson PowerMark F Series. We were the first company to start developing laser technology for an industrial application here in Vietnam, and we strive to make a machine that’s not only affordable and powerful, but also tough and durable.

We see our products as positioned at the mid to high-end of the market as we don’t see any real need to cater to the entry level operators as it wouldn’t be good for long term investments. Although at the moment we only manufacture a few products under our own brand name, we see this just as a start, with plans to expand our Namson product range in the not too distant future. It’s important for us to grow our product range based on the foundation of quality, so we’re not going to rush our R&D processes at the expense of quality.

IMNA: What are some of the industries you cater to, and how would you describe your target market?

Bryan: There’s a number of manufacturing industries we service such as mould makers, pharmaceutical, beverage, the gifts industry, mechanical engineering, electronics to name a few. With regards to our target market, well our strategy at the start was to focus on the local SMEs as we’d already been servicing this sector since we started operations. However, as our products and services develop with our continuous improvement policy, and as our brand becomes more known amongst the broader industry we are starting to also focus our sales efforts to include the FDI companies, and to date we have supplied machines to companies such as Mercedes Benz and Nidec Copal.

Although we feel confident catering to the international companies, due to our local knowledge I would have to say our strength lies more with the domestic manufacturers. We’re also developing our export markets and presently building our brand name in Cambodia and in Hong Kong where now we have a distribution and service agents.

IMNA: What is the company’s strategy with regards to building your brand name?

Bryan: As with all companies these days, it’s not just selling a machine, you got to offer the whole package. Customers are willing to invest into new technologies as long as they feel confident that the machine manufacturer can provide the support required to analyse processes, provide operational solutions, install the machine, provide operational training, and offer superior and fast technical support. We knew from the start that if we were going to successfully compete with the international brands we were going to have to do it better than our competitors and offer consistent high quality product and service.

Building a brand takes time and is based on customer satisfaction and developing a product track record with consumers. We realise that we’re the new kid on the block and we still have a long way to go with getting our name out there, but we’re committed to developing our brand and are more than happy we the market response so far.

Additionally, we’re also attending a number of trade exhibitions in the region and this year have made the journey to Bangkok, Malaysia and Hong Kong, so we’re quite active in promoting our brand, particularly around the South East Asian region.

IMNA: You mentioned before that Namson are working on the development of new products. What are some of the new machines you’re presently researching?

Bryan: Our R&D department is constantly growing and our investment into the development of new product is also regularly increasing. Presently, our R&D focuses partly on the ongoing improvement of our existing products and the development of new laser machines such as UV lasers and 3D laser machine. It’s wrong for a company to be complaisant with regards to their product range, and should always be assessing future industry needs. We do a lot of market research and talk to the end users of our products as a way of identifying future market demands.

IMNA: They’re a large number of companies considering automation as a way of improving operational efficiency and quality. However, automation also requires computer technology and software development. Is this type of technology also a part of what Namson develops?

Bryan: Yes, you’re right there, computer technology and software development have certainly become an integral part of machine manufacturing these days, particularly in regards to automation. Our R&D department includes an area for software development, but at the moment we predominantly modify existing software and make it more user friendly for Vietnamese consumers.

Through our efforts Vietnamese machine operators can use advanced technology with the advantage of operating it in their own language, which I’m sure you can appreciate, has a very positive impact on productivity. Although Vietnamese industries are developing rapidly, there is still a shortage of a trained and skilled workforce.

Our tailored Vietnamese language software has numerous benefits such as cutting back on the training time for operators, which is also a great benefit if employee retention is difficult to maintain. This user friendly software we create also allows the operator to become familiar with the machine a lot faster, which in turn creates a safer and more efficient level of operations. We also customise the function of the software to suit the particular need of the customer, which also forms part of the solutions package we offer.