VIETNAM 2005

APAVE Vietnam & South East Asia: a decade of cooperation and action in Vietnam LE Van Phuc (X64) General Director of APAVE Sud Europe Chairman of the management board of APAVE and

Pierre DELOHEN

Apave, the leading French and international group in quality inspection and technical assistance, has decisively invested in the market of Vietnam, a nation that is developing thanks to the economic open-door policy which began in 1990. For the 10 years operating in Vietnam up to now, APAVE Vietnam & South East Asia (APAVE VN&SEA) has established its presence in 6 provinces and cities (including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang city, Vung Tau, Nha Trang and Hai Phong). It has become the leading company in Vietnam to provide verification and consultation services as a third independent party in verifying quality of construction works, doing Non-destructive testing (NDT), advising quality management and providing reliable training service. On this basis, APAVE has gained successful access to markets of South East Asia through giving priority to know-how transfer as a main cooperation tool. This way helps save its traditional values… “What is the benefit of involving as a third independent party in a country that is just developing while the model is familiar only in developed ones?” This is the question put to himself by Mr. Le Van Phuc – General Director of APAVE and the founder of APAVE in Vietnam in the magazine “La Jaune et la Rouge” in May 1997. The full answer is given in 2005: because Vietnam, with the employment of an economic policy aimed at integrating with the world market, MARKET / ENTERPRISES

would have to make leaps and bounds in the framework of globalization and as a result would need to quickly find out how to address key issues such as quality standardization, contracts or agreements, quality guarantees, etc. By means of the doi-moi policy, Vietnam has become a country with lots of potential. Its biggest strength is its population of 82 millions who are famous for their intelligence and dynamism”. This is the comment by

Mr. Nguyen Cong Phu, Asian Pacific regional director of APAVE Sudeurope cum general director of APAVE VN&SEA. Its strategy to develop activities closely related to quality, safety and technical assistance ensures a sustainable balance of the three service lines: industrial inspection (inspecting equipments, carrying out nondestructive testing), construction verification, and organization consultation (ISO 9000, 14000, etc). Its relation with partners also creates additional balance, which Mr. Nguyen Cong Phu named “miraculous triangle”. It is the close relationship between APAVE with administrative and political bodies, and industrial investors of both Vietnam and the rest of the world. APAVE VN & SEA never sacrifices its traditional values of the profession and ethics for the sake of growth. Indeed, the company is expected to earn a turnover of USD 3 million in 2005, compared to that of USD 25,000 in 1998. The leadership of APAVE has determined to choose the technologies and skills of APAVE France

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as the cooperation tool in working with partners from both state-owned and private sectors of Vietnam. This is done even in the knowledge that APAVE itself will later face the competition from these very partners. APAVE has trained hundreds of specialists both inside and outside the company. It is not surprising such well-known foreign company which has helped introduced the quality management system ISO 9000 into Vietnam has done that. Thanks to its technical expertise, APAVE has been involved in supervising many important industrial projects in the oil and gas area in the entire country. It is a real challenge for the people, who are familiar with moving around the crowded streets of HCM city in peak hours on their motorcycles and obeying very equivocal rules which are mysterious to the too logical Westerners, to accept the model of third independent party supervision. How is it to install a third independent partner among the investor, contractor and implementation units when they are only familiar with their traditional ambiguous style? However, by presenting their unquestionable expertise, skills and organization, APAVE leaders have succeeded in creating the need for third independent party supervision and inspection1. APAVE VN & SEA has been fully qualified for supervising and/or verifying apartment buildings with at least 30 floors, hotels, office buildings and high-rise apartment buildings, manure production plants, hydraulic power plants, thermal power plants, chemical plants, cement plants, etc. “Maintaining independence and quality, we work on the basis of standards and standard agreements even when we sometimes still have problems with explaining the two concepts because they do not belong in the habits of our customers”, said Mrs. Nguyen Phuoc Tuy Ha, marketing and developing manager of the company. In Thu Thiem, which will soon lie in the turn point of Sai Gon River, and in HCM city, which will receive around 2 million citizens, APAVE has verified quality of three residence pro-

Important dates 1995-1997 : s’etting up representative office and striking cooperation with ministries (The ministry of Science and Technology, the ministry of construction, The general department of standardization and measurement) and big corporations (Petro Vietnam, Vietnam Airlines, Lilama, etc). 1997: Receiving license to establish wholly French invested company, training 20 Vietnamese engineers at international level, expanding to markets of China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, etc. 2002: participating in oil and gas projects in Africa. 2003-2008 (plan): Establishing APAVE Malaysia; setting up 6 establishments from the North to the South of Vietnam; planning the future head offices in Shanghai, Bangkok, Bombay, etc.

jects. “As the consultant for project owner, we are present at the project sites from the beginning to the end. This frequency of presence in Vietnam is normal”, said Mr. Vo Minh Son, an APAVE engineer who was responsible for supervising and inspecting An Khang project. Eighteen-floor buildings have been built on land lots which were once marshes. Apart from on-site ins-

Habitation complex control Photo: Apave Group

pection (if necessary, supervision minutes with comments will be sent to investors), APAVE does the direct cement inspection at the production plants. Nguyen Phuoc Loc was present at An Thinh project, a construction project to build a 17-floor residential building area where APAVE involved as an investor’ nominee for supervision. He said: “We conducted our ins-

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pection by using rules of ISO standards”. For this experienced man, quality is always the most important thing. He said: “the special strictness of APAVE is a relatively new factor for projects where related parties often priotize progress over quality”. Supervising as a third independent party has started to interest industrial decision-makers. Non-destructive test (NDT) is the second service of APAVE VN & SEA with using such techniques as Radiographic testing, ultrasonic testing, magnetic particle testing and liquid penetrant testing, etc, which are applied to offshore oil exploring and exploiting equipments, pipelines, structures of factories and ships. In Vung Tau, which was once known as Saint-Jacques cape, APAVE has involved in inspecting gas and liquidified gas stations since 1992 by doing NDT on equipments, then direct visual survey and doing NDT in the framework of periodical maintenance. At present, APAVE has been invited to implementing periodical maintenance and inspection with those plants that stop operation for maintenance. For liquidified gas plants, APAVE carries out NDT during the installation, direct visual survey and NDT during the maintenance time. In order to gain the confidence and recognition of domestic and international customers, APAVE has always gone ahead of the 1 Since April 2005, a new decision on compulsory supervision, inspection by a third independent party has been applied to ensure the quality of big projects such as high-rise buildings and government projects.

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market by training their technicians and engineers with the assistance of training experts from France, Singapore and Malaysia. Furthermore, the company often invests in modern and highly reliable equipments. In addition to making considerable efforts in maintaining their position in a harshly competitive market as well as in the entire South East Asia region, the company has to face another competition in the oil and gas area with the difference of American and British standards and certificates such as CSWIP, ASNT, PCN, etc. “We are forced to group these standards and certificates, and train our engineers so that we can meet all needs of customers”, said Mrs. Nguyen Phuoc Tuy Ha who always cares to strengthen the presence of PAVE in this special area. In Vung Tau, APAVE has been involved in inspecting the construction of gas exploiting zone Ruby B. The construction and operation of this project in the future is the result of the cooperation between Petronas, the Malaysia’s leading petrol company, and Petro Vietnam. Hasbi Razak, who works with Petronas Carigali Vietnam Limited highly appreciated the role of third independent party of APAVE as well as APAVE’s work capacity and methods. Quality and management consultancy, the third service of APAVE, currently concentrates on technical training (for example training NDT engineers and welders) and specialized management. Since 1992 with the consultation provided for the two laboratories Quatest 1 and Quatest 3, and Vietnam’s biggest electricity meter production company (EMIC) in designing its systems to meet standards of ISO 9000, APAVE VN & SEA has reaffirmed its direction. At MMVC, a Japanese enterprise located in Bien Hoa specializing in the manufacture of motorcycle and auto spare parts, which is well-known for its strict quality control system provided by its mother company, APAVE has been highly appreciated for its proper consultation and scientific working methods in appraising ISO 9000 certificates and preparing the ISO 14000 appraisal. In a more general terms, training MARKET / ENTERPRISES

The advantage of APAVE VN & SEA APAVE Sudeurope has turned APAVE Vietnam into one of its advantages, a key to expand to the entire South East Asia. A conquest includes many successive phases demonstrated by the activities of APAVE in Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Middle East and African. With the establishment of APAVE Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, APAVE is thinking hard on penetrating into the markets of China and other Asian countries.

activities organized by APAVE have often been participated by more than 1000 people including senior officials, leaders of all levels, technical manager as well as production engineers. For many consecutive years and since the beginning, APAVE has made big investment in training its staff by sending dozens of advisors from France to Vietnam to work and train Vietnamese engineers. APAVE VN & SEA was set up ten years ago to participate in the project to build the first oil refinery of Vietnam. Currently, the company is investing in the Dung Quat economic zone which is situated in Vietnam and very large in scale, including an airport, two oil and gas ports, one oil refinery and many other factories (garment factories, footwear factories, etc) and a city with 100.000 citizens. APAVE is now present on the site and is completing talks on signing the contracts for inspecting the construction qua-

lity of a waste water treatment plant and a transmitter-receiver station. More important, with its quality inspection services, APAVE VN & SEA has joined efforts with Sogreah, a French Company, in consulting the construction of a 1.6 km break-water embankment to protect the refinery and the oil and gas ports in the future (which is constructed by Lung Lo construction company of Vietnamese Ministry of Defense). This embankment will be the condition for the building of a deep sea port, facilitating the transportation of oil and other products of the new refinery. In the suburban area of Hai Phong, for some years now, APAVE VN & SEA has established a unit operating in the new shipyard of Nam Trieu company, which is capable of building 5 new heavy cargo ships simultaneously. “In a very competitive market like Vietnam currently, APAVE comple-

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tely meets our expectations”, said Mr. Vu Van Cu, deputy manager of Nam Trieu Company. “The price is suitable, the service perfect, the staff enthusiastic and the quality good”, he continued. Many contracts have continuously been signed: NDT, quality management consultancy (ISO), training welders, educating the usage of NDT equipment and granting related certificates… This consistent development is first thanks to the working quality of the staff of APAVE VN & SEA. Compared with only three founding members in the beginning in 1995, the company had total staff of 250 people in 2004 and has total staff of 270 in 2005, that’s not to count the staff of APAVE in Malaysian branches run from Vietnam. In 2002, the turning point in the development of the company was recorded with its staff being doubled to 180 people. Currently, 85% of the company’s staff are engineers and technical specialists. All its administrative workers can use from 2 to three foreign languages, hold university degrees and have been carefully selected and trained. The company now does not need residential experts from France. It has even sent Vietnamese experts to projects outside the country, which are managed by its mother company. Mr. Le Van Phuc, the initiator, Dr. Nguyen Cong Phu, his direct associate in Vietnam from the day one said that apart from finding the right answer to the initial problem (though a hard one), the success of the company should be doubled because it has really gained some respect in Vietnam. To be able to manage a big French company like APAVE Sudeurope, Mr. Le Van Phuc himself has been a pride of his Vietnamese partners. Mr. Tran Van Dung, deputy manager of Quatest 3, a state-run standardization and measurement organization, who was the key character in the first cooperation deal with APAVE VN & SEA when it was just set up, said: “thanks to Phuc, we could benefit a transfer of knowledge in consulting methods and ISO quality verification in Vietnam. Through training activities, advice, and management 10

Photo: Group Apave Quality control for Total Gaz.

consultancy, the relationship between us and APAVE has been stronger and stronger”. For only 15 years of the open-door policy, Vietnam has primarily shortened the gap with other more developed Asian tigers. This time span is equal to 30 years of economic development. It all starts from the national pride of Vietnam. According to Nguyen Cong Phu, for APAVE VN & SEA to become a strong establishment with high added values, it needs to understand the local market and develop a professional working style in terms of technology and service quality. The company has been proactively contributing its parts in the takingoff of Vietnamese economy and the country’s integration in international trade. The motto of the company is “always pursuing main businesses, priotizing the satisfying of customers’ needs as well as meeting profit requirements”.

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