Pingle on the road to become century-old enterprise

12 min reading

You will get efficient and thoughtful service from Pingle.

Zuo Kun, China Pingle Group: &#;Pingle has reached a leading role in this industry in both domestic and overseas markets. Pingle&#;s all business operations merely center around the quality guideline that satisfies customer demands with market orientation, top quality, and best services. In the tendency of consumer market segmentation and high-quality orientation, product quality and brands will become the key to win the market and Pingle pursues innovation-driven development and keeps updating and upgrading of production and processing equipment. To build an international first-class brand and create a century&#;s Pingle, we have been on the road.&#;

China Pingle Group has been operating in the milling machinery industry for 30 years. Their main products include the roller mills, square plansifters, purifiers, multi-storey flour milling plants, and turn-key flour milling plant. As a result of innovative development in the past 30 years, Pingle has become the grain processing enterprise with a comprehensive capacity of design, production, and installation. Exporting to more than 50 countries across the world, Pingle has a production capacity of over USD 100 million in yearly output value.

Zuo Kun, General Manager of China Pingle Group gave an exclusive interview to Miller Magazine on the trend in the world milling industry, the state of the Chinese milling sector and Pingle&#;s future objectives.

First of all, could you please provide us with some brief background information on your company and its activities? Hebei Pingle Flour Machinery Group Co., Ltd. started as a plant in and is a group company that focuses on grain machinery engineering equipment manufacture with diversified business operations. Its main business is production and operation of turn-key projects of 9-T flour machinery complete-equipment of various models, and contracting to undertake turn-key projects of 100-T steel structure complete-equipment; moreover, it has further developed special productive equipment of coarse cereals such as maize and brewing and can provide scientific and perfect solutions to fine processing equipment and process technology of coarse cereals.

What kind of role and place does Pingle has in China and also in the world in its operating industry? Could you tell us how Pingle has come to its current position? In the global cereal milling industry, Wuxi Buhler&#;s equipment, Turkey&#;s equipment, and Pingle&#;s equipment all have some market share. Wuxi Buhler has brand accumulation of years, extensive business scope and good product quality with expensive prices. Turkey, near Europe, has the advantage of customer recognition relying on location advantage, but the product quality is irregular.

As a result of innovative development in the past 30 years, Pingle has presently become the grain processing enterprise with the strongest comprehensive capacity of design, production, installation and the like in the Chinese milling industry. All of key core equipment in the milling industry can be designed and produced on an independent basis, and complete sets of engineering services can be provided to customers. Particularly in Africa, India, and CIS countries, Pingle&#;s equipment holds a competitive edge in the product quality, and Pingle excels in the business competition in Tajikistan, Syria, etc..

In the whole international market, Pingle&#;s equipment quality, the extent of automation and globalized services have received recognition and support from more customers, and these customers choose Pingle as a strategic partner.

Pingle has reached a leading role in this industry in both domestic and overseas markets. Pingle&#;s all business operations merely center around the quality guideline that satisfies customer demands with market orientation, top quality, and best services. This means that Pingle takes market demands as the orientation of technological innovation in each development, and keeps R&D of new products and improvement of product quality so as to satisfy customer demands.

Can you tell us about the state of the milling machinery industry in China? Wheat is the main food in China. The wheat milling industry, as the basic and main traditional industry to satisfy human food demands, has had a tremendous change wholly over the last ten years. Firstly, the wheat milling industry has been turning towards large scale and group development. The direct data is that the Chinese wheat milling enterprises have developed from more than ten thousand ten years ago up to the present less than 7,000 over the last ten years. With the acceleration of large scale and group development, wheat milling enterprises will continue to decrease, and capacity of production will be quickly concentrated in strong enterprises, which will make the strong stronger and the weak weaker, thus the strong will win and the weak die out.

Secondly, the traditional wheat milling has started to produce safe and healthy products according to market demands and meanwhile lay more emphasis on product quality and innovation of product categories instead of following the original track of &#;fixing production according to purchase, and fixing sale according to production&#; in the past. Thirdly, the Chinese wheat processing equipment and technologies are more advanced, with the extent of automation being higher and higher. With acceleration of the Chinese reform and openness and introduction and innovation of overseas advanced technologies, the gap between China and developed countries in technologies of milling automation becomes smaller and smaller, and the Chinese technologies has held some market share in Southeast Asia, Africa, Central Asia, etc.. Lastly, competition in quality and brands has become normal. The Chinese residents lay more emphasis on safety and health in daily consumption, and tend towards higher-end products. In the tendency of consumer market segmentation and high-quality orientation, product quality and brands will become the key to win the market.

Can you give us some information about your facilities and production capacity? Pingle pursues innovation-driven development and keeps updating and upgrading of production and processing equipment. Presently Pingle has advanced processing and testing equipment such as German-made CNC laser cutting machines, CNC bending machines, horizontal machining centers, vertical machining centers, welding robots, and coordinate measuring machines, follows the production philosophy of constantly striving for perfection, and manufactures high-quality products with advanced productive power and craftsmanship. Now Pingle has a production capacity of over USD 100 million in yearly output value.

How many people do you employ? Pingle has more than 600 employees currently, of which over 50% are in R&D, management and marketing.

Could you tell us Pingle&#;s recently finished and ongoing important projects? Yearly Pingle has lots of milling projects in installation. On the overseas market, recently we have completed more than sets of solar-energy milling equipment in cooperation with the Zambian government, complete sets of 500T wheat milling projects in Tajikistan, 200T wheat milling projects in India, several complete sets of 100T wheat milling projects in Ethiopia, grain storage and processing EPC projects in cooperation with Uganda Ministry Of Agriculture, etc.. What will be installed in the near future include complete sets of 200T and 600T wheat milling projects in Tajikistan, 150T maize milling projects in Lesotho, etc.; on the domestic market, the recently completed excellent projects include 500T wheat milling production lines of Manzhouli Yitai Agriculture, 500T wheat milling production lines of Henan Shangcai Jinliyuan Flour Milling, 300T maize milling production lines of Xingtai Jinshahe, and brewing projects of Moutai equipment.

What are the outstanding features Pingle presents to the customers? As a result of development and accumulation in the past 30 years, Pingle has won trust and support from lots of customers across the globe. Firstly, we has complete systems of product R&D, technological design, architectural design, and electrical automation design, as well as design and processing capacity of complete sets of projects, and can provide customers with turn-key projects for complete sets of equipment. Relying on advanced specialized production equipment and excellent employee teams, we improve institutional procedures and implement intensive management in each link from material purchase up to product delivery.

Secondly, Pingle has complete marketing and service networks across the globe and establishes service stations across the globe which can provide customers with timely and considerate services.

Lastly, Pingle&#;s products adopt customized, professional and localized technological designs to better cater for customer demands according to dietary habits of people in different countries.

What can you say about the innovations and solutions that you have brought to the milling industry? Technological innovation is the motive power of development. Only by conducting technological innovation and product innovation can the industry progress be promoted and enterprises operate on a sustainable basis. Pingle&#;s technical R&D center has a highly professional and well-experienced team, which conducts product R&D, testing and practical application of sci-tech achievements on the basis of industry development and customer demands to satisfy high-end demands of more customers. Presently Pingle&#;s technical R&D center has won the special honor &#;Industrial Technical Design Center of Hebei Province&#;, which is also a result of our years&#; hard efforts.

What will your R&D department offer to customers in the coming period? Pingle will keep the improvement of the performance of key milling equipment, and launch complete units of equipment in conformity with market demands.

In overseas markets, which regions are you most active in? Where do you export your products? How many countries are you currently exporting? Presently Pingle&#;s most active markets are mainly concentrated in India and Tajikistan in Asia, as well as Egypt and Ethiopia in Africa, etc..Main export countries are India, Russia, Tajikistan, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Zambia, etc&#; Pingle&#;s products are currently exported to more than 50 countries across the globe.

Could you please tell us what kind of change you have experienced in the milling industry particularly in the last 4-5 years? Firstly, customers have higher requirements for quality, automation and production of wheat processed products. Secondly, market competition is fierce, in which big milling enterprises develop and grow rapidly while small enterprises face the fate of being eliminated and annexed. Lastly, the market has more detailed classification of flour categories and product quality, and customers have more and more requirements for higher-end products.

As abovementioned, Pingle&#;s development guideline is market-oriented. The recent-year development tendency of the milling industry indicates that the milling industry has been developing towards big size, large scale and intelligence. In China, a daily average processing capacity of flour is approximately 250,000 ton wheat, and now the top three enterprises of Wudeli, Yihai Kerry and Cofco in the Chinese milling industry have respectively a daily processing capacity of 40,000 tons, 17,000 tons, and 12,000 tons, all of which currently holds approximately 30% of flour processing total in China. The top three enterprises all plan to increase production over the next five years. Therefore products of milling equipment enterprises also must develop towards big size, large scale and intelligence. Pingle&#;s technical core gradually goes towards the research on perfect matching between key equipment and processing technologies and automated production systems, thus satisfying demands of different countries, regions and customers.

With a population of 1.4 billion, China is the world&#;s second-largest economy. Can you tell us about the advantages and disadvantages of being in a country with such a large economy and population? Over the past 40 years of the Chinese reform and openness, the Chinese milling industry has had a tremendous change, and there are higher requirements for equipment and technology , product performance and product quality. In the current population and market environment, grain machinery enterprises are faced with challenges and opportunities. The favorable is that China has a large population, flour is the everyday staple food, there is a huge market demand for flour, and thus grain processing equipment has a steady demand space.

Challenges and opportunities: The Chinese grain machinery products, compared with those of international tycoons in this field, has the gap of deficiency in manufacture refinement, low brand perception, low high-tech application at key parts, and so on, and the only thing we should do is to keep technical innovation and managerial innovation, constantly strive for perfection, keep improvement of product sci-tech contents, and promote national brand value.

Looking to the future, what do you believe the challenges and opportunities are for your company? The global milling industry has huge market potential, and there are vigorous demands for large complete units of equipment and small units of milling equipment. On such a huge market, each enterprise is faced with competition across the globe, and meanwhile enjoys opportunities for development and growth equally. The biggest challenge for us is to need constant improvement of our technical innovation, and reduction of costs and increase of returns, so as to provide customers with equipment of best quality and prices across the globe, and thus give an impetus to the rapid development of the global milling industry. The opportunity is a huge market capacity, and thus we need to set up more professional marketing and service teams to seize the opportunity and realize rapid development.

What are your future targets in your operating market? Firstly, we will persist in the orientation of technical innovation to provide the global milling industry with excellent products to satisfy the new demands of customers. Secondly, we will make more efforts in developing international markets to make Pingle Brand irreplaceable in more countries. Lastly, we will give good and attentive services to each customer to help customers gain profits. Since the establishment, Pingle has been following the business philosophy of doing business by relying on complete sincerity and honesty and creating Pingle as a century&#;s famous enterprise. To build an international first-class brand and create a century&#;s Pingle, we have been on the road.

Is there anything you want to add and share with our readers? We would like to express our sincere gratitude for all partners across the globe for their attention and great kindness to Pingle. In the future, we will make more efforts in contributing to technological advances in the global milling industry, attentively manufacture the most excellent products to serve loyal customers who trust us.

In the global flour milling industry, there has always been a certain mystique about P.T. Bogasari Flour Mills&#; mammoth mill in Jakarta, Indonesia. Recognized as the world&#;s largest flour milling facility for many years in terms of both milling capacity and physical size, it stands as a monument to the growing importance of flour-based products in that heavily populated country as well as the greater Asia region.

This recent surge in popularity of wheat flour-based products prompted Bogasari officials to authorize yet another expansion of the plant.

The mill, which has 15 milling lines (yes, 15), recently expanded its &#;I&#; and &#;J&#; milling lines, with production capacity in each line increasing from 800 tonnes (wheat equivalent) per day to 1,200 tonnes per day. Capacity in the &#;H&#; mill is in the process of being expanded from 800 to 1,200 tonnes, with the expansion expected to be completed in the third quarter of . When the final piece of equipment is installed, the plant&#;s daily capacity will reach 11,650 tonnes and its yearly production capacity will be more than 4 million tonnes.

The world&#;s largest flour mill needed to get bigger to meet consumer demand, said Franciscus &#;Franky&#; Welirang, director of PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, with responsibility for Bogasari&#;s milling division, in an interview with World Grain.

&#;Indonesia&#;s flour market is growing,&#; Welirang said. &#;The average 10-years growth is 5% per annum, mostly due to population growth, changes in eating habits and the growth of the middle-income class.&#;

According to a recent Global Agricultural Information Network report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, relatively stable macro-economic conditions in Indonesia have allowed middle and upper-middle income consumers to diversify their diets to include more western-style foods like bread and pasta.

&#;Rather than eating rice three times daily, many Indonesians have switched to eating bread or noodles for breakfast,&#; the USDA said. &#;Restaurants are also driving demand for wheat-based food products. The number of high-end bakeries is also growing, mainly in major cities, including Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, and Bandung.&#;

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Welirang, who is also president of APTINDO, the Indonesian flour milling association, said wheat consumption in Indonesia is currently 8.5 million tonnes but is expected to jump to 11 million tonnes annually by . While rice still dominates as a staple food in Indonesia with annual consumption at more than 100 kilograms per capita, wheat flour consumption has risen to 23 kilograms per capita.

Keeping pace with demand

To keep pace, the company&#;s flour production capacity also has grown 5% in the last 10 years, Welirang said. In addition to the Jakarta expansion, Bogasari is building a new mill in Cibitung, which will include two existing and two new milling lines with total capacity of 2,600 tonnes per day. It also has a mill in Surabaya with eight lines totaling 6,150 tonnes of daily capacity and a mill in Tangerang with two lines and 200 tonnes per day capacity.

Bogasari became part of the Indofood group in and produces a range of flour products sold under brands such as Cakra Kembar, Segitiga Biru, Kunci Biru, and Lencana Merah. The company also produces pasta for both domestic and export markets under the La Fonte brand.

&#;There are five main flours produced with a total of more than 50 SKUs, differentiated by protein, ash and specialized flour,&#; Welirang said.

Bogasari&#;s primary flour customers are the Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which comprise about 66% of the Indonesian market, Welirang said. The list of larger customers includes Indofood, which acquires its flour (22% of Bogasari&#;s total flour production) from its subsidiary, as well as Mayora, Nippon Indosari, Nabisco, Monde and others. The export market accounts for less than 5% of the company&#;s flour output, Welirang said.

&#;Based on the volume, both (large and small flour end users) are growing,&#; Welirang said.

Bogasari, which employs 2,300 workers at its milling plants, is by far the biggest flour miller in Indonesia and has a market share of 50%, according to Welirang. While it is still dominant, its market share has dropped a bit since , when it was reported at nearly 70%.

Indonesia has 28 flour milling companies that have a production capacity of 11.8 million tonnes of flour (grain equivalent), Welirang said, noting that actual flour production in is expected to be around 6.4 million tonnes.

&#;The total capacity nowadays is more than the market needs,&#; Welirang said. &#;The national average utilization is 70%.&#;

He noted that the country&#;s milling market has become far more competitive since deregulation in , when the country had just five flour mills, but that the competition is good for Bogasari and the country&#;s milling industry in general.

&#;Bogasari differentiates its products by having consistent quality, natural, pure wheat flour and also with availability by having a strong distribution network and services,&#; Welirang said. &#;The brand of Bogasari flour is very strong.&#;

The mill in Jakarta, as well as Bogasari&#;s other milling plants, typically receives wheat imports from three countries: Australia &#; its primary supplier &#; as well as the United States and Canada. However, the recent drought in Australia has forced Bogasari to also bring in wheat from the Black Sea region, Welirang said.

Bogasari&#;s operations are supported by a maritime unit of five post panamax and five handy/supramax vessels, which are used to transport wheat from those countries.

Retrofitting the mill

For the expansion of the Jakarta facility, Bogasari turned to Ocrim SpA, the Cremona, Italy, milling equipment manufacturer that has been involved in various expansions of the Jakarta mill since it opened more than 40 years ago.

One of the challenges was increasing capacity without expanding the physical size of the mill. To do this. the wheat cleaning and milling sections of the milling lines were retrofitted with latest-generation equipment from Ocrim.

&#;To achieve the desired results it was necessary to reinforce the civil structure of the building due to additional loads, integrating the building with an additional floor to exploit as much as possible the concept of energy savings applied to the entire plant,&#; Ocrim said. &#;Moreover, with a very innovative and efficient diagram, it has been possible to implement Ocrim&#;s latest-generation double-deck roller mills, used in an optimal way to obtain an excellent final product, and to apply a modular plansifter with 10 channels also for a concrete optimization of the space.&#;

The sifters feature an automatic sieve press to guarantee ease of operation and reduced maintenance times. Ocrim&#;s automation department equipped the three lines with @rollermills software that allows mill operators to control the mills remotely via tablet and then to program them with a single operation carried out any place in the mill.

&#;Since the operator is no longer required to act on the roller mill onboard control, it almost completely cuts down the setting time of the entire line and is also innovative for safety purposes, because, despite running on Wi-Fi, it guarantees a secure protection from external agents,&#; Ocrim said.

The new equipment is made of stainless steel to guarantee the best product quality and safety, Welirang said.

&#;The new milling lines are equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology, ready for implementation of 4.0 (a term that refers to the fourth industrial revolution in engineering and manufacturing that is being implemented in Indonesia) with all the important features of product safety and energy savings,&#; Welirang said.

He noted that having both state-of-the-art equipment and knowledgeable millers are essential to run a mill the size of the Jakarta plant.

&#;The most important factor is having good millers,&#; he said. &#;And for sure, the automation system, the smart sensors, online control and all the IOT (Internet of Things) will help the millers operate the mill in a good and efficient manner.&#;

The company operates an in-house packaging unit that produces degradable polypropylene bags to support its packaging requirements.

About 85% of the flour produced at the Jakarta mill is packed in 0.5-kg, 1-kg, 2-kg and 5-kg packs, 25-kg bags and 750-kg jumbo bags, which are then transported by trucks and railcars. The remaining 15% of the flour is transported in bulk, Welirang said.

For exported flour, Bogasari uses the Jakarta and Surabaya state port facilities, but it does have its own ports for exporting wheat bran pellets in bulk, he said.

Welirang noted that as part of the expansion at the Jakarta plant, Bogasari plans to install an additional 36,000 tonnes of wheat storage capacity to cover the mill&#;s needs for high, medium and low-protein wheat.

Potential for more expansion

Welirang said among the biggest challenges facing milling companies in Indonesia is transporting finished products as the country is composed of five large islands and more than 15,000 smaller ones.

&#;Bogasari has 26 warehouses to cover the distribution in all of Indonesia,&#; he said. &#;Close collaboration with shipping companies is very important.&#;

The company is strategizing about how to expand its output, specifically in Eastern Indonesia, where economic development is less advanced and transporting product to that area is difficult due to its remoteness.

In a interview with World Grain, Welirang discussed potential strategies for this market.

&#;One option is to build a new mill for Eastern Indonesia,&#; he said. &#;That would be a challenge, and it depends on economic development, but this could be located somewhere in Papua. It&#;s a possibility. We would then use the international port in Sorong. From a mill there, we would import wheat in bulk and ship out in containers.&#;

Depending on market growth in that region, Welirang said such a development could occur in the next 10 years.

In that same interview, Welirang noted that greater opportunities also exist in the Southeast Asia export markets where the milling industries were not as strong asIndonesia.

&#;We need better port facilities so we can export processed flour-based products to Southeast Asia,&#; Welirang said. &#;We, as an industry, are doing that already and total exports of wheat flour, byproducts and wheat flour-based products have grown in value to $755 million, and in the next few years this will reach $1 billion. So we are a very important industry for the economy, and exports will play a growing role in this in the future.&#;

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