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It takes a lot of work for a company to create a product. From manufacturing to inspection, the final step in the process is packaging the finished product to protect it.

　Packaging may seem like an unimportant step in the process of moving a product from supplier to buyer. However, packaging not only protects the contents, but also serves as a sales promotion to encourage consumers to purchase the product by providing convenience during the distribution process.

　Electronics, furniture, and automobiles, which are collectively referred to as “pre-purchased goods,” are expensive, so they focus more on protection than aesthetics, utilizing specialized protective tapes to preserve the value of the product.

　There is a company in Gimpo City that produces this protective tape, which we encounter in our daily lives, with its own technology. Founded in 2014, Dasung P&F is an outstanding female business in Gyeonggi-do that produces industrial protective tapes that are essential in the production process.

# DASUNG P&F, a dark horse in the protective tape industry

, specializes in producing protective tapes for vehicles, electronics, kitchen appliances, window frames, and more.

　Unlike general retail products, industrial packaging of these expensive products requires more emphasis on functionality. Currently, the products produced by DASUNG P&F have a reputation in the industry for their relatively low price and high functionality.

　Some low-priced protective tapes made in China or Vietnam use water-based adhesives, which have a strong odor and often freeze or melt depending on the season. In addition, the thin thickness of the protective tape made it easy to puncture or deform, causing damage to the product that needed to be protected.

　However, Dasung P&F's protective tape is twice as thick (0.045㎜) as the existing protective tape, and it is evaluated as a product that improves the odor and deformation of the tape by utilizing acrylic adhesive. The biggest advantage is the low price and immediate delivery of the product to the customer, in addition to the high quality.

　In a typical manufacturer, there are various problems caused by the so-called “bullwhip effect”. For example, when a company purchases raw materials from a supplier to manufacture a product, if the market demand or supply of those materials is unstable, the company will place a larger order than originally required. In this case, the manufacturer will incur storage costs or disrupt planned production due to inventory that is larger than the original demand.

　In the case of Dasung P&F, the company has implemented a complete “same day order next day delivery” system. The production volume of about 1,200 boxes per day allowed the customer to realize JIT (Just In Time), which served as a motivation to use DASUNG P&F's products by eliminating inventory burden and production plan disruption

. # Securing innovative productivity through R&D

The reason for DASUNG P&F's excellent productivity is not capital or scale, but technology.

　Founded in 2014, DASUNG P&F used to run its factory day and night until 2017, when it couldn't fulfill all the orders it received. In order to speed up production, CEO Shin Min-kyung immersed herself in research to complement the production equipment, and eventually developed a cutting device with more than three times the production capacity of competitors

. The cutting device, which has been patented, has dramatically increased the company's productivity. Currently, Dasung P&F produces 200,000 meters of 1.5 meters wide protective tape per day. If converted to a year's worth of production, it would be enough to circle the globe more than halfway around. In terms of area, it would cover all of South Korea.

This increased productivity has led to the realization of ‘economies of scale’ and has contributed to a 20-30% reduction in cost compared to competing products. Furthermore, the fact that the company has been in business for only seven years and most of the customers to whom it supplies its protective tapes have been doing business for more than five years shows the level of trust it receives from its customers.

# Trust is what got us through the crisis

It wasn't all smooth sailing for Dasung P&F. Just as the company was gaining momentum with the operation of its newly designed cutting machine, an unexplained explosion occurred. Luckily, no one was injured in the early morning hours when the factory was closed, but the explosion was caused by various chemicals that are the raw materials for protective tapes.

　After the explosion, Shin, who started the business with two business partners in 2014, decided to reopen the factory, taking on all the debts himself, against the advice of others to close the business. Although she was devastated, she worried about her employees, who would lose their livelihoods overnight

, and together with her employees, she succeeded in getting the business back on track in just two months, instead of the expected six months. Luckily, the cutting machines needed to produce the products were able to be produced in-house without delay, and customers who understood the situation waited patiently for Mr. Shin. Two months later, the factory was up and running again, and all customers returned without a single defection. The trust that Mr. Shin, his employees, and his customers had forged during the crisis quickly brought Dasung P&F back to normal.

　Mrs. Shin's latest interest is ‘smart factory’. However, his motivation for implementing a smart factory is not to save money by reducing labor costs. Through the smart factory, Mr. Shin aims to ensure a safe working environment for employees by replacing the current manual product packaging with robots

. The company also pays close attention to employee welfare, including various reward programs and a system to support children's education, which is rare for small and medium-sized enterprises.

　Mrs. Shin hopes to continue to build a company that employees will want to stay with.

-How he overcame business challenges.

　In January 2017, we were on the verge of closing down due to a factory explosion. My co-founders convinced me to close the business, but I wanted to keep it going, so I returned my shares and took on all the debt. Fortunately, with the help of our employees, we were able to normalize the factory within two months, and all of our customers who trusted us resumed business with us, so we were able to quickly overcome the crisis.

-Dasung P&F's special features.

　We have dramatically increased our productivity by three times with our own machines, and we have two of them, so we have a much higher production capacity than our competitors. We have a large amount of safety stock, so we have a system that allows our customers to place orders on the same day and complete delivery within the next day. We are also proud of our 20-30% lower prices and trust with our customers, most of whom have been with us for more than five years.

-Challenges.

　As a business owner, it is difficult to operate a company due to various legal and regulatory environments. Even if a company develops the same product, there are blind spots for cheating or sanctions depending on the size, making it difficult to compete fairly.

-Future goals.

　We want to become a company that continues to work with our employees. We are working on a goal to complete the smart factory project in five years, and the reason is solely to improve the working environment for our employees. I believe that the better working conditions we can create, the closer we can get to our goal of staying together with our employees.