The buzzing and humming of sewing machines fill the hallway of PT. Dianatina Ayu, a small-and-medium-sized enterprise located in Kuta, Bali. The sounds are created by dozens of workers who produce various types of garment to be exported to different parts of the world, such as Europe, the United States, Australia, and several countries in Asia.

“This company was founded by our father, Panudiana Kuhn, 30 years ago. We are the second generation entrusted with this company,” says company President Director, Surya Ayu Paulina Kuhn. In the day-to-day operation, Surya is supported by her sister, Vice President Director Ratna Dewi Katarina Kuhn, to run the family business.

PT. Dianatina Ayu has its own shares of ups and downs within the three decades of operation, particularly in 2006-2007 when it faced strong global competition from China. The situation hit the business quite hard, forcing the company to reduce the employees down by half to about 500 people. They still had to lay off a few hundreds more employees afterward.

The significant decrease in the number of workers increased the workloads of the remaining manpower. As they felt the heavy burden, it hampers the management’s efforts to increase the efficiency. Fewer workers led to the lack of workplace cleanliness and organization.

In addition, Agung Sanjaya, the Human Resources Manager who has been working for five years at PT. Dianatina Ayu, said that there was not a good communication system in place, and the culture to invite workers to discuss problem solving was missing.

“The management was not aware that transparency in communications and even information distribution within the company would improve work atmosphere and make workers more comfortable,” Agung said.

Towards work transformation

In October 2014, an ILO-SCORE Indonesia programme, together with a private training service provider, BEDO, organized a training to improve the productivity of small-and-medium-sized enterprises in Bali.

The first SCORE module that focuses on collaboration brought a new hope for the company that was eager to revive. “When the training was completed, we immediately sat together to create the programs to overhaul our internal organization,” Surya says.

The initial step was to establish an Enterprise Improvement Team (EIT) to implement SCORE programme within the company. It was a serious move, marked by the signing of the commitment between the Management and the workers, and the dissemination of information about the team’s plans to the entire employees.

Subsequently, to improve the communication and collaboration, the team began to introduce the importance of daily briefing, bi-weekly meeting, and the celebration of employees’ birthdays. “The activities that we hold seem very simple, but in fact they are the ones that give the biggest impact to the production process in our company,” Surya said.

Yetik R. Diana, a supervisor at PT. Dianatina Ayu says she has gained some understanding on the benefit of daily briefing, which is now intensified by the company. “All of us in the production department give feedbacks on the issues we encounter and we become more resourceful when other units experience some problem. This has speed up the work and avoided finger-pointing when an error occurs on the production floor,” Yetik says.

The newly found communication scheme and daily briefing have improved the job completion and it trickled down to the punctuality of product delivery. In January 2015, the punctuality of product delivery hit 89.47 percent, and in February it even reached 100 percent.

Moreover, the company has paid more attention to employees’ suggestion and feedback through the suggestion box. The box would be opened every three months, which coincides with employees’ birthday celebration. “The Company has even rewarded the employee who is able to provide good suggestion to the company. I am very happy,” said Wayan Sumba, an employee from the material cutting unit.

Other than suggestion box, PT. Dianatina Ayu is now maximizing the use of bulletin boards round the company. The company has also promoted ““5S” through activities like waste management, setting up cleaning duty schedule and the implementation of 5S in each work unit.

“It is not easy to change the habits of the workers who have been working for years in the company. However, we are open for discussions with the employees during bi-weekly meetings. We address the issues faced by the company and encourage the workers to lead the transformation for the sake of company’s sustainability,” Ratna said.

As a result, the working departments of the company has now more organized. “It used to take 15 minutes to locate the required material. Now I no longer have to waste my time as all of the materials and equipment have been properly arranged, including the data of the activities in the previous day. It has been truly time efficient,” says Yetik, the supervisor who has been working at the company for 15 years.