Printing in Hong Kong & China
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ AUGUST 28, 2017 88
Hung Hing
A new building, which adds a 270,000-sq.-ft. production area
to Hung Hing’s Heshan manufacturing facility, is set to be fully
operational within the next nine months. “The whole facility
of five buildings will be RFID-enabled for better tracking of
new material pallets, and work-in-progress and finished goods,”
says chief operating officer Richard Lim, adding that all Hung
Hing manufacturing sites have started adopting Industry 4.0’s
smart-factory model this year. “The production floors will be
segmentized into manufacturing zones of different products
with streamlined equipment and workflows to achieve leaner
manufacturing processes.”
For next year, the major focus will be on enhancing the com-
pany’s children’s and novelty book production as well as inno-
vating its deluxe rigid-box manufacturing business. “We have
continued to invest in automation to increase productivity and
negate rising labor costs,” Lim says. “We are also working with
sound-and-light module suppliers to develop new products—
including voice-activated capabilities and touch-sensitive tech-
nologies—that are aimed at the novelty book segment.”
Warehousing and distribution are now a part of the Hung
Hing end-to-end service chain. “By tapping on our Hong
Kong-based warehousing facility, we can now store and dis-
tribute to destinations throughout Asia Pacific,” says
Christopher Yum, Hung Hing commercial director. “This
means that clients do not have to incur additional costs ship-
ping products back to their home country while reducing
shipping time, thereby cutting down on their carbon
Another value-added service that has shown tremendous
growth and potential comes from Hung Hing’s foreign-rights
division. “Our team functions as the middleperson, helping to
coordinate rights trading between publishers from the West
and China,” Yum says. “This has enabled our publishing clients
to gain an entry into the Chinese publishing markets with
minimal cost and effort,” adds Yum, whose foreign rights team
has recently launched book design and illustration services.
“We are acting as a bridge to help Chinese publishers who are
starting to look at creating their own titles and IPs with
resources and ideas from external parties.”
At the same time, subsidiary company Beluga (the brand
behind Bridging Book technology-enabled publications) is
working on IP protection on behalf of publishers. “Through its
collaboration with a security solution specialist, Beluga offers
Super QR code—a unique anti-counterfeiting measure that also
tracks and traces a product while providing the necessary data
analytics for better business planning,” explains executive
chairman Matthew Yum. “This solution is in high demand in
the packaging business due to the rise in counterfeit products
in the F&B and health care sectors.” Hung Hing in recent
months has also added two digital postpress machines (one
Scodix and one Highcon) to offer higher-value finishing for
both packaging and publishing clients.
Matthew Yum (seated; second from left) with his management team at
Hung Hing.
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Pop-Up Christmas Tree
For a Christmas promotional package for
Tokyo Disneyland Resort, Hung Hing’s paper
engineers had to create something unique
and innovative as well as environmentally
friendly. “The Christmas tree—made entirely
of paper to keep it ‘green’—can be flattened
and nicely packed inside a box, which also
holds the candies and goodies,” says product
development manager Nicholas Yum. “The
box is also sufficiently reinforced in order
to support the popped-up tree,” adds Yum,
whose team had to meet the stringent quality control requirements demanded by the
Japanese market. “When this was launched,
the design attracted a lot of attention, with
many impressed by the promotional pack’s
dual-purpose engineering. For us, it marked
yet another breakthrough design with high-quality finishing.”
