Royal Friesland Campina Visit

The visit to Royal Friesland was an interesting stop. After traveling to the outer areas of Ho Chi Minh City, we arrived at a pretty campus surrounding the Royal Friesland plant. After getting off the bus, we were welcomed into the main office of the plant. The facility was beautiful and modern, easily on par with anything a person would expect to find in the United States. From the main lobby we were greeted and taken into a conference room where we had the opportunity to meet the plant manager.

The plant manager showed us a company video detailing Royal Friesland and some of the goals for the company in Vietnam. He explained his personal background with the company and how the company is structured. After the presentation we were taken on a tour of the facility.

During the tour we had a chance to see the quality control lab, as well as the packaging process. It was interesting to hear how strict quality control is for the plant. There is frequent testing of the dairy products at different stages of production to ensure that the entire milk batch is up to the standards of Royal Friesland.

Theodore Alexander Visit

After the Royal Friesland visit we drove to Theodore Alexander to visit their furniture manufacturing facility. This was a visit that I believe amazed the group. The facility was still in the process of recovering from a recent fire that destroyed a portion of the plant. Theodore Alexander, in responding to the resulting challenges, demonstrates an amazing flexibility in changing their production process within the facility in order to work around the lost production space.

The most impressive aspect of the Theodore Alexander visit was the chance to see how much individual, hand-craftsmanship goes into each piece of furniture produced by the company. Each stage, from sanding the raw wood to hand cutting mother-of-pearl inlays, involves a remarkable amount of precision work. The result is incredibly beautiful pieces of furniture.

The folks at Theodore Alexander also gave us the chance to ask some questions that gave us a great opportunity to see how a foreign company has to operate in a foreign country. A company like Theodore Alexander is not always able to rely on the protection of the local or national government when dealing with serious issues like worker riots. They have to have the ability to be flexible in thinking in order to overcome obstacles that they may not even encounter in more “developed” or “westernized” nations.

Dinner

That evening, after our company visits, we were invited to dinner at the home of Anthony Cox, Creative Director for Theodore Alexander. The home was beautiful and a perfect setting for our final meal in Ho Chi Minh City. We were joined by Harvey Dondero, President of Theodore Alexander, and Jess Ruelokke, Theodore Alexander’s Chief Financial Officer. The casual setting allowed us to ask questions that we may not have thought of until after our site visit with their company. The food was amazing and the whole night left an impression on the group that I don’t think any of us will be able to easily forget.

Written by Bryan Sulentic