Fair Trade Manufacturing In Bali With Recycled Sterling Silver Available Now

Introduction:

PT Kapitmas (www.kapitmas.com) was the first company outside of the US to be a Harmony Metal Hoover and Strong distributor. I have worked with this company for ten years and visited their plant on numerous occasions.

Here, the Director of the Company, Ben Morice, originally from New Zealand, describes his operations.

~ Marc Choyt, Publisher

When did you start at PT Kapitmas and what is your general customer base?

Ben: I first started making Jewellery in Bali in 1986 in a small way and was exporting back to New Zealand. New Zealand is a small country and it soon became clear if I wanted to follow my visions of creating jewellery in Bali I would need to search for larger markets, so in 1990 I sold my importing business in New Zealand and moved to Bali permanently.

Kapit Mas was set up in 1996 as an Indonesian based joint venture to look after foreign customers, and in 2000 became a fully fledged Foreign Investment Company. Our general customer base is mid sized wholesalers and designer’s. We do create our own range of jewellery, but are happy to create or produce ranges for individual customers also.

Of course, the copyright of every design we produce for all our customers is strictly protected.

First, what are a few of the things that make your manufacturing in Bali different than other manufacturers?

Ben: When I first started making jewellery here I did the normal thing of outsourcing, getting this made here and that done there, casting in one factory, fabrication in another, I was doing a lot of inlay work and was doing that in another place again and ended up getting really frustrated with quality issues that nobody would be responsible for, and I was working and designing from a different office yet again.

I spent my life chasing problems from one place to another, So on setting up Kapit Mas I went against the flow and purposefully built a factory with everything in one place, so I can be hands on with all aspects. Office design (and photographic) studio, showroom, casting, finishing, fabrication, plating, stone cutting and inlay work, QC and shipping, it all happens right here in one place.

We have recently added on a resin fabrication facility as well which has expanded our production abilities. I like to experiment and create different and unusual things, and having it all in one location makes it much easier for us to develop and iron out the production bugs in advance, and helps us to control and maintain working conditions and standards.

If you are looking for the cheapest jewellery in town we may not be your supplier of choice, but if you are concerned about the ethic’s behind your production, are looking for good communication, customer service and quality, along with innovative ideas and designs then we might be a better match.

Apart from wages, bonus, vacation time and some medical coverage, fair trade generally speaks of a premium that goes back into the community. Do you have anything that would qualify as that?

Ben: We have a very interesting mix of people working here. We are based on a Hindu Island, and participate in the ceremonies of our local village, We coordinate with the local village head to recruit locally where possible, choosing unskilled and unemployed local youth, we run work training and skills programs for them and then give them jobs as work permits.

Many people we have trained go on to find work in other companies also. To some employers this may seem like a loss, but we retain enough for our needs and we gain goodwill from the village for running these programs.

We employ over 100 out of the area workers who all live, work, rent houses or rooms, buy food, etc. locally, adding significantly to the local economy. Balinese villages have unique village security system called Pecalang this is a group of village councilors whose task s to maintain the peace and security of the village and in general especially during festivals and ceremonies.

Our security team, works very closely with the Pecalang to help out in times of need and to generally maintain a harmonious environment.

What kind of safeguards do you have for your workers?

Ben: We grew out of a basic small traditional worker run workshop, typically with very low consideration towards worker health and safety levels. As we have developed more into a centrally controlled factory, I have been able to force better working conditions onto our people.

The use of the word “force” may sound incongruous here but at a basic level the understanding of workers towards issues about their own health is very low, so it’s a program of educate and implement, and amazingly sometimes with resistance from the very people you are looking after as you are training them in new and safer methods of work.

However we have made good progress. We have good dust collecting and ventilation systems throughout the factory, safety equipment is used where appropriate, first aid stations (rarely used now except for headache medicine!) throughout the factory and one thing that really works; we keep an accident incident book in which we log all incidents, who was hurt, how they were hurt and who was responsible.

I am happy to say the book is very empty. Nobody wants their name in there as being responsible for their own or a workmates misfortune! Our engineering dept undergoes regular maintenance programs to ensure all machinery and hose fittings, etc. are well maintained and safe.

Was it difficult to bring in Hoover and Strong Harmony Metal into Bali?

Ben: We are really happy to be working with Hoover and Strong. They are a great company with great ethic’s, which allows us to stand by our product with greater pride. It was quite a task to get the necessary government permits to import metal into Indonesia. It took us almost a year and was expensive, and we now face constant monitoring by the Indonesian Customs Department to ensure we are following the terms of the permit.

They don’t like to make bureaucracy easy here, but we believe it’s worth it and are encouraging our customers to take advantage of this opportunity. The great thing about Harmony metals is that H & S also get involved in the marketing by supplying certificates and POS material which if retailers want to use I am sure will help consumers make good purchasing decisions

How much can people save by casting with you verses in the US?

Ben: I can save an American company from 30% to 70% in their casting charges working with precious metal that is 100% recycled.

Besides using Harmony Silver, what other efforts do you make to ensure that your raw materials are ethically based?

Ben: We are very careful to only use natural products that are not listed as endangered species under the CITES agreement. We do a lot of work with shell but only work with Indonesian and Tahitian Pearl shells which we buy from pearl farms, and we also use New Zealand Abalone or Paua Shell which is fished under a strict Government quota system which maintains the resource.

It is sad to see a lot of people out of Bali buying coral jewellery. It looks great and it’s cheap but it’s something we will not touch even though we could sell mountains of it. The destruction to the reefs in ripping up this coral is huge. It’s the blood diamond of the sea, and people love it.

We also use in small quantities, common cowries and cone shells which are plentiful. We will also not use the Chambered Nautilus, another remarkable and endangered species which unfortunately is still easily available for purchase.

We do use some wood in our work, but it’s all coming from recycled sources, teak from old demolition sites and old furniture and iron wood from old electricity pylons. We also use some Indonesian rosewood (sonokliling) which comes to us as offcuts from a furniture factory who buys it from a Government licensed source. Unfortunately we are not able to give a provenance for the stones we buy at this stage, but we would very much like to find a reliable, ethically certifiable source of semi precious stones.

Contact: Ben Morice ben@kapitmas.com
Skype name: Ben Morice in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.

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