A total solutions provider with services ranging from the manufacturing of wooden and plywood cases, crates, pallets and skids to on-site and in-house warehousing and transportation services and management, Sing Mah Wooden Cases Manufacturer Pte Ltd is a leader in the packing industry with more than 3 decades of experience.
Sing Mah is renowned for the design and manufacture of wooden pallets, wooden cases and crates, and plywood cases, which they supply to companies in wide-ranging industries, including petrochemical, aerospace, freight forwarding, telecommunications, electronics, and information technology. Sing Mah’s quality in sourcing for timber has also led them to supplying raw materials to the construction industry.
Mr Chua Jun Ming, Managing Director of Sing Mah, also revealed that their experience in dealing with heavy machinery has allowed them to expand operations into packing heavy machinery and sensitive equipment, as well as warehousing and transportation operations, tapping on their sea and air freighting arms that were established in 2009.
An even more recent development was the import and processing of woodchips, to be sold as biomass solid fuel for the generation of electric power as a renewable source. Mr Chua sees this as a sizeable market in the near future, for cost and environmental reasons.
“South Korea needs about 100 million tons of coal per year to generate power, and each ton of coal can be replaced by 1.5 tons of woodchips,” explains Mr Chua, “woodchips are cheaper by 40% to 60%, produces less emissions, and is a renewable resource.” Sing Mah currently imports the wood from Malaysia, before processing and supplying them to companies in Malaysia, China, South Korea and Japan, and are in talks with the local Tuas Power to supply them with the biomass fuel.
Sing Mah was founded by Mr Chua’s father, and previously focused only on manufacturing wooden cases for local companies. The senior Mr Chua only had 4 employees and operated out of a facility spanning a modest 3,000 square feet in SungeiKadut.
Mr Chua joined Sing Mah in 2005, right after finishing his stint in National Service. He worked his way from the ground up, recounting his days doing everything from paperwork to sales and even delivering the finished wood cases to clients. Mr Chua says he believes an education from experience is invaluable in the business world, and together with his father’s influence on him to be more business-minded, the 33-year-old now runs Sing Mah with no less than 50 employees and a facility with a floor space of 60,000 square feet.
Upon realising there is a profitable market in manufacture and supply of pallets for industrial usage, Mr Chua pushed Sing Mah into the industry, and now supplies about 50,000 pallets per month, mostly to petrochemical companies. Mr Chua has also made Sing Mah a total solutions provider, from logistics, to warehousing, to packing, and now even renewable energy sources, from its original focus of manufacturing wood cases.
Mr Chua’s ability to identify new markets that Sing Mah can enter strongly will ensure that the company will have even greater success in the future.
Mr Chua is currently planning to open a new plant in Malaysia to expand operational capabilities, as well as exploring options to duplicate the Singapore operations in Malaysia, effectively doubling Sing Mah’s capacity.
Mr Chua also believes that the market for woodchips will continue to expand, and he will position Sing Mah to be market leaders in the increasingly popular source of energy.
