Practical problems for plywood manufacturers at the beginning of the QCO era

11th& 28th of February 2025 shall be etched in the history of Indian Plywood Industry, as the beginning of QCO – Quality (Control) Orders Era in our country’s plywood & wood-based panel products sector.

The industry has largely welcomed the QCO implementation with great applause, during its extension period of 1 year, and rightfully given due credit to our Hon PM Shri Narendra ModiJi & his Team’s outstanding efforts to standardize Made In India products with Zero Defect, Zero Effect Vision.

However, our plywood manufacturing sector – specifically the small-medium enterprises, has always lacked sufficient vision and strategic thinking so far, capable enough to practically ensure 100% realization of the Visions of our Governance Team at the Centre. Some of the practical problems/scenarios facing these manufacturers are as below:

• Lack of Quality Mindset

Quality is a mindset, not a process in itself.

This is the most painful curse being faced within the Indian plywood industry. It is the mindset and attitude towards Quality, from the ownership & management, which decides the quality of the factory, its processes, and its products.

India has always lacked the Quality Mindset, consistently. Perhaps this problem accentuated since the wide spread surge of the industry from North East to whole of India. Though things have started to change during recent times, most of the factories continue to run without the quality mindset.

It must be remembered that quality does not happen by just investing money or becoming more aggressive with the team. Quality happens when the ownership thinks, talks, behaves & acts for quality and consistency.

• Proverb – ‘For peanuts, you will get monkeys.’

Most of the small-medium factories do not even know how to choose their team for operations of their factory. Even in factories having 100s of crores of turnovers, we can see the “gullu”-makers using their own “paarmoolas”. The so-called managers & supervisors talking absolute nonsense about production, in the name of ‘practicality’, and the owners being very happy to boast about their “experienced” team.

Days are numbered for such mindset factories, hereafter. Their self-boasted ‘practical’ team themselves will perhaps help the owners close down such factories soon.

Having a qualified, knowledgeable, vision-oriented, future-proof team on the factory floor is the most essential investment for the coming times of purely customer-centric industry output.

• Lack of appropriate processing practices

This is an area of deep concern with respect to the upcoming  Standards implementation.

Owners and managements more often, lack the quick adaptability and realization of need for change in their important raw material – core veneer processing – such as slow drying, conditioning, and also their resin & glue practices – such as resin viscosity, cooking perfection, glue viscosity changes, glue mixing mastery etc.

There continues to be a lack of acceptance of change and adaptation to new thinking, especially within the micro-small plywood manufacturers, though many of the medium level producers have started changing their thinking and are actively trying hard to come out of ancient prejudices.

‘Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.’ – Maya Angelou

• New materials need new processing parameters

Gone are the days of >7 years-old wood logs for core veneer peeling. There is stiff competition for plywood with other wood-based panel producers such as MDF, PB, OSB and plywood, for raw material resources.

So, plywood factories must adapt to new, low quality wood resources, by adapting with better processing techniques & capabilities, and resin/glue technologies, without compromising cost competitiveness.

Adapting machinery, processing, and production techniques with respect to available raw material resources remains key to the existence and survival of plywood factories in future – especially the micro-small factories.

‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ – M. K. Gandhi

• Lack of skilled manpower

Skilling and human resource development continues to be a totally ignored area of strategy for the plywood manufacturing sector. The wood-based panels industry sector, with more than 5000 factories across our country – micro & small being more than 60% of them, had never thought of such requirements.

Experience-based searching and induction of staff & workers has been the industry thumb-rule so far. The implementation of QCOs will see a drastic change in skilled workforce requirement, qualified enough to handle the standards requirements and knowledgeable enough to handle product quality scenarios.

Lack of investment in workforce skilling and human resources development for our sector, is going to hit the micro-small sector very hard.

• The problem of understanding Cost of Quality

Understanding the phrase – Cost of Quality – is very critical to the survival of micro-small manufacturers. Most of these units continue to think that they can manage ‘somehow’ by paying the ‘visitors’ and ‘twist’ the sampling, testing, & inspection process.

Such thinking owners must remember that mandatory QCO means, mandatory Production Manual entry & records, for each and every Lot of each CML number respectively. Every board produced MUST have CML number in India. Each LOT must be sampled and tested in-house, against any probable occurrence of BIS market-sampling.

The factory in-house lab must be READY every single day, for market-sampling  information, test reports and complaints. They must realizehow long, & how many number of times will they ‘adjust’ their sample-testing and reports from the market. It is going to be a very costly affair.

Consistently maintaining Quality – alone, will lead to reduced Cost of Quality, in the coming times is to be remembered.

‘The bitterness of poor quality remains, long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.’ – Benjamin Franklin

It is hoped that our country’s micro-small manufacturers in the wood-based panels manufacturing sector realize the significance of QCOs, and quickly ramp up their mindset, thought-process, factory team, and quality consciousness, in order to be able to successfully continue their manufacturing operations with pride and respect.

For those who are quality conscious & consistent in their thoughts, I promise that the QCO implementation is not going to hit them hard, whether they are micro, small, or medium industry.

Such manufacturers shall definitely adapt quickly and ensure consistency in their processes, techniques and product finishing, without adding too much to their costs.

 Jai Hind!

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