The TYREMAN, Sun Rubber Industry Sdn Bhd

April 2005

As a leading rubber compound manufacturer for more than three decades in Malaysia. Sun Rubber has increased its rubber compounding capacity recently to cope with the growing market demand.

According to Steven Gan, Sun Rubber Industry Sdn. Bhd. Executive Director, the company previously used up only three acres of factory land to produce rubber compound. Now, however, they have expanded the facility to encompass seven acres. With a new Banbury machine that will commence production by June at the latest, the company says it will be able to increase its output from 1,000 tons to 1,500 tons.

“We are upgrading the machine so that we can increase our capacity to provide a better and speedy service to our customer”, explained Gan.

According to Steven Gan, at the moment, 60% of the company’s rubber compound is destined for the local market with 40% for export. The company is now looking to reserve this ratio and to achieve 60% export sales. In view of this increase in Sun Rubber capacity and improvement in quality, Sun Rubber is able to compete globally in term of quality and pricing.

Sun Rubber’s range of products includes precured tread liners, cushion gum, repair rope rubber, orbitread compound and camelback compound as well as custom manufactured compound. Sun Rubber covers a number of international markets, exporting to more than 30 countries in the Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

To Gan, the main challenges for the rubber compounder are competitive pricing, quality and consistency. He points out that the raw material pricing is very challenging and it depends strongly on the world oil market

“Oil is the main factor as rubber compound contains synthetic rubber. It also affects the transportation industry. The cost increase in raw material and transportation has had great impact on pricing of rubber compound. Thus, in order to be competitive one need to have economies of scale in production.”

Gan also adds that Sun Rubber continues to investing in R & D to give customers the best possible product. This is also important as the customers will often give the company the end product and request them to do reverse engineering.

Find out more about Sun Rubber Industry Sdn Bhd