The Indonesian Furniture Industry Needs Automation

Jakarta, (WoodNewsID.blogspot.com) Chairman of HIMKI, Abdul Sobur, revealed that the output of the national furniture and crafts industry experienced a downward trend of 4.9% in 2022. Meanwhile, export sales also decreased by 7.5%, but sales in the domestic market actually increased by 9.5%. According to him, this may have happened because sales were still high and the domestic economy was strong during the Covid-19 pandemic. Imports also experienced a fairly large decline, namely 13.2%, "If imports fall, we will actually be happy because it means that goods imported will decrease," he said when delivering a presentation at a seminar at the IFMAC and WOODMAC exhibition at JIExpo Kemayoran on September 20 2023.

Furthermore, Sobur said that the circulation of goods in the domestic market decreased by 5.4%. He suspects that the trend over the past year occurred because the global market was corrected.

Sobur also explained that of around 2551 furniture and craft business units throughout Indonesia, they were concentrated on the island of Java. East Java Province is in first place with around 35% of the total existing industry. The second place is occupied by the province of Central Java with around 20%. "There are in Jepara, Semarang, Yogyakarta and Solo Raya," he said. Below it is the province of West Java. He said that only around 5% of furniture and craft industries and businesses are located outside Java. "So the distribution is still focused on the island of Java."

According to him, automation and technology in the furniture industry will be very important in the future. He is of the view that the application of automation and technology solutions can help furniture manufacturers increase production efficiency, reduce labor costs and improve production quality. This can be done by adopting digital technology such as 3D printing and robotics.

He gave an example of the application of automation in the production of carvings which can speed up the production process. "For manual work it takes 3 months, while with a robotic engraving machine it only takes 8 hours for the same work area," he explained. Then he said that automation does not eliminate existing local wisdom, but with automation local wisdom can actually spread throughout the world "Because the market is no longer limited but has gone global," he explained. Sobur clearly stated that the national furniture and crafts industry needs to imitate the progress steps that have been taken by China. (WNID/eM)