Thao Li Contruction, Trading & Services - Vietnam
Through a contact in Adelaide, I was able to meet with Alistair Sawer from Thao Li Construction, Trading & Services (TLC) in November last year. Originally from Perth, Alistair has lived and worked in Ho Chi Minh since 1990 with one arm of his activities including modular and prefab construction.
Following our initial meeting in Adelaide, we have stayed in contact and as a result opportunities have presented themselves for GGDAA to be involved in speculative high rise modular projects in Australia & New Zealand.
I was permitted open access to the TLC head office for my four days in Ho Chi Minh City and was able to work with their in-house Architects & Engineers, as well as Nigel Telford of Minpac (a Brisbane based modular company working in collaboration with TLC), reviewing their wide range of projects, completing a design review session and presenting my findings on the Australian prefab and modular industry to senior staff.
On my last day in Ho Chi Minh, Alistair and I ventured to their fabrication facility at Vung Tau, an industrial port city 90 mins south-east of the southern capital. The long linear facility was hub of activity with approx. 100 local staff (and five or so management & QA staff – headed up by a UK expat) working on dozens of bathroom pods for a hotel project in Singapore. Further down the line are some much larger mock-ups for the aforementioned hotel project in New Zealand as well as completed mining camp accommodation modules.
I was impressed by the sophistication of their operation, which was very similar to that of Hickory in Melbourne. What has become prevalent throughout my investigations in Australia and Asia thus far is that all modular fabricators have slightly different ways of producing their mods and pods, but quality control is a common priority for all of them. On a number of occasions, Alistair stressed the importance of having Australian standard QC/QA in place and has invested a great deal of energy bringing their operation up to that level.
On Monday next week, Alistair will be in Singapore presenting to their Housing and Development board to finalise their bathroom pod license approval (one of only twelve issued annually). I will also be meeting with the Building & Infrastructure group within the Housing & Development board next Friday to discuss their process and the impact the efficiency & rebate legislation has had on the prefab & modular industries in Singapore.
Many thanks to Alistair, Nigel and all the TLC team for being such wonderful hosts.
