Remember the local sporting brands Sunny, Sunny Spirit or Moskba that used to be the IN thing in the 70s? Come meet their manufacturer-- Hip Seng International Company!

The HDB tenant first started manufacturing at a small private shophouse in Hougang back in 1976. The business soon expanded and the company relocated to 4 HDB factory units at Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2 in 1980. Today, the family business has shifted its manufacturing bases from Singapore to neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore remains more as a headquarter as well as a production base for smaller local orders.The company also caters for customised orders such as T-shirt, jackets, sports wear and more.

Mrs Chong, Manager of Hip Seng opined that the Asia market is in general more inclined towards overseas branded wear. As a result, the garment manufacturer cum trader now focuses more on servicing clients rather than developing their in-house brands. Their local customer clienteles include retail giants such as Seiyu, John Little and Takashimaya. For overseas market, the company with an annual turnover of $6 million services clients largely from the West in America and Europe.

Hip Seng has invested significantly in automation to increase work efficiency. For example, to maximize output, the company uses a computerized "Marker Machine" to compute the optimum way of marking out the various garment parts such as sleeves, collars, etc on the fabrics. The company then makes use of an automated" Cutting Machine" to cut out the markings accordingly, resulting in much labour and time savings.

The company is also very familiar with the IT technologies and applications used in the textile industry. For example, there is the Textile Quota System or TQS used by garment manufacturers to bid for exporting quotas to various countries. The system, which has been around for more than 10 years, makes use of online bidding. Then there is the Online Project Bidding System by some of the larger buying houses. Mrs Chong explained that these systems allow buying agents to source for low manufacturing prices for large buying houses such as Armani, Gap etc.

Hip Seng International does not have its website currently but has been using the email and fax as part and parcel of their business rituals. When informed that HBIZ provides an avenue for them to set up their very own website, Mrs Chong was more than enthusiastic. " It would serve as a stepping stone before we commence on building our own website. This has been in the pipeline for a long while but just never really got off due to our work commitments!!" The family-owned company will be looking into venturing into overseas market such as China in near future.

Find out more about Hip Seng International by clicking here today!