When we consider the furniture industry of Bangladesh, we may recall certain well-known furniture brands such as Hatil, Brothers, Akhtar, Navana, Partex, and so on. Aside from these major names, the country is home to around 70 thousand non-branded and traditional furniture makers. According to tbs news, the furniture industry of Bangladesh has reached to worth about 10,000 crore. In order to get to this point, however, the industry has been transformed considerably. Because of the use of automated machinery, robots, and computer softwares to manufacture furniture, the quality of the product has substantially increased, and mass manufacturing has been possible. The ‘woodworking sector’ plays a critical role in this significant growth. It encompasses a wide range of tasks ranging from wood processing, cutting, designing, and burnishing to final furniture manufacture. This sector serves as a backlink for the furniture industry. ‘Wood Tech Solutions’ is the only company in our country to work with this type of technology, which has gained reputation by supporting domestic furniture factories as well as working in several countries around the world.
‘Wood Tech Solution’ has played a significant role in developing the woodworking sector in Bangladesh. Along with providing high-tech woodworking machines, the company has also contributed to the growth of the industry by providing woodworking technology solutions, free training, and consulting. The company’s own brand ‘WTS’ is the only industrial machinery brand in Bangladesh which gained international recognition as well.
History of Woodtech Solution
Md. Naimul Hossain Khan, the CEO and Founder of Wood Tech Solution, is an Industrial Consultant with 22 years of experience of working in the machinery industry.
At the eve of his career, following the completion of his MSc degree, he began working for ‘Bosch’ – a German multinational engineering and technology company in 1996. There, he developed his knowledge of high-tech mechanical equipment. In 1999, under the Nordic based NGO ‘Swiss contacts’ Market Development Project ‘Katalyst’, he participated in the Furniture Manufacturing Industry Development Project in Bangladesh where he served as a consultant.
Throughout the duration of this project, which lasted until 2001, he traveled across Bangladesh and visited numerous furniture manufacturers to provide training for the sector’s development. He observed that there are a lot of unskilled people in this sector. However, with the right use of modern machinery and adequate training, they may improve the quality of their product and perform their task more efficiently than before. After realizing the potential, he founded ‘Wood Tech Solution’ in 2000 with a vision to support wood working sectors in Bangladesh.
From the beginning, the company has been focusing on selling woodworking machines as well as providing advice on how to increase production efficiency, training in machine operation and after sales service. Md. Naimul Hossain Khan, the founder, attended many fairs across the world related to woodworking and industrial machinery from time to time, and from there, he became acquainted with some of the world’s leading wood working machine manufacturers, and WTS became their local partner. In Bangladesh, WTS brings the latest technologies in the woodworking sector that help the sector grow and achieve international standards. However, selling machines was never the sole target for the company. The founder realized that there is no furniture design institute in Bangladesh. However, our neighboring country India has furniture design institutes. Aside from that, he noticed that, after the RMG industry, the furniture industry in Bangladesh employs the most unskilled workers. That’s why, Woodtech Solution sets their core vision to provide training on machinery operation properly and bring efficiency to the production, rather than selling machines only. If any individual or company wants to introduce a furniture production factory, or want to upgrade the production of the old factory, WTS provides the person or company with a complete woodworking technology solution including production layout design, machinery supply, installation, machine operating training, after sales service and proper use of raw materials. Woodtech Solution has worked with the majority of Bangladesh’s furniture conglomerates as a working partner, including Hatil, Navana, Akhtar, Partex, Brothers and many others.
Besides that, they have worked on a furniture project of ‘Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory’ led by Bangladesh Army. According to the CEO, Md. Naimul Hossain Khan, they have completed BDT 200 crore worth of projects with furniture manufacturers, and another BDT 177 crore worth of projects are now ongoing in Bangladesh. The company’s efforts, as well as the CEO’s 22 years of working experience, are partially responsible for the development of Bangladesh’s furniture industry to its present state. Although WTS is a Bangladeshi company, most of the machinery design and manufacturing of the company is done in China. Currently, the company is exporting its own brand ‘WTS’ machines directly from China to more than 43 countries around the world. But they do big projects with their partner, the world’s top European machines.
Although woodtech solution is a Bangladeshi company, they design and manufacture most of their machineries in China. Currently, they are exporting woodworking machinery directly from China to more than 43 countries around the world under the brand name ‘Woodtech Solution’ and already established its international recognition.
Current Operation
Selling Woodworking Machineries
‘Woodtech Solution’ basically sells woodworking machinery in local and foreign markets. In the manufacturing of furniture and doors, machines ranging from basic to very high tech are available. WTS currently sells more semi-automatic industrial machines to local large furniture companies and more basic machines to medium and small factories. At present over tens of thousands of WTS machines are running in all types of furniture and door making factories all over Bangladesh. WTS introduced technology such as automatic machines and robots for building furniture in Bangladesh for the first time.
Provide Consultancy
In addition to selling machineries, ‘Woodtech Solution’ is providing consultancy for the development of foreign furniture manufacturing companies. As part of the consultancy, the company works with clients to ensure factory design, production layout design, machineries selection, machineries installation, operations training, proper use of raw materials, and proper utilization of human resources. Since its inception WTS, it has been working as the only woodworking technology expert in Bangladesh. The company ‘WTS’ and its head Mr. Naimul is now known as one of the leading woodworking consultants, not just in Bangladesh but all over the world as woodworking technology experts.
Develop Traditional Furniture Manufacturing Sector
Along with big furniture manufacturers, woodtech solution is extensively working on developing the traditional furniture manufacturing sector of Bangladesh. Typically, traditional furniture producers’ products are of poorer quality than those produced by large automated furniture manufacturers. Because of this, they could not charge the higher profit margins that brand-name furniture producers could. Woodtech solution provides them professional training to enhance the quality of their products, allowing them to compete with the products of larger companies and bring competition to the furniture industry.
The company has already set up the only woodworking technology center in Bangladesh at Keraniganj in Dhaka. With over 100 state-of-the-art woodworking machines, this twelve thousand square foot technology center has all the amenities of international standards. Anyone can visit this technology center to learn about modern methods of making furniture and doors as well as take free training to operate the machines. Presently, CNC router machines are being widely used in Bangladesh for designing 2D and 3D furniture and doors. Training on this design software is conducted at the WTS Technology Center. It is noteworthy that the first CNC router for woodworking was brought to Bangladesh 20 years ago through WTS. In addition, WTS works with the Bangladesh SME Foundation for the development of zonal furniture and door factories throughout the country.
At present, the company is collaborating with a conglomerate in Bangladesh to provide free machineries to 100 furniture factories in the country, in addition to helping with production development and creating a product portfolio, and training engineering students for free.
The company has already invented a device called ‘WTSARS’ or ‘WTS Automatic restarting system’. With this device, a CNC machine will be fully automated and can be restarted without any assistance from an operator once the machine regains electricity. A patent application has already been submitted for ‘Wood Tech Solution’. For the first time in Bangladesh, the company developed a full-service app for after-sales service of its machines.
There are several challenges in the development of the woodtech sector in Bangladesh. However, as there is a lot of potential in the global export of Bangladesh’s furniture industry, Woodtech Solutions is constantly working to ensure the development of this industry.
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