XN000022-1996-07-05 — Page 42

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"Unfortunately, it is not all a bed of roses. Take our labour supply for example - yes, we have plentiful supply of cheap labour, especially in these days of prison overcrowding, but we have no control over our supply.

"We cannot hire and fire, retain key staff or even lay off excess workers. Furthermore, most of our workforce really does not want to be our workforce for obvious reasons.

"Motivation is very difficult and as a result quality has tended to suffer. CSI products had a reputation for poor workmanship, late delivery and unreliability. But like many a monopoly, we had no incentive to improve our service - we had a captive market.

"In the last couple of years, this apparently cosy situation has been shaken up. As more and more government departments became public authorities, such as the Hospital Authority, or became trading funds, such as the Post Office, our captive market began to break free.

"Once these organisations no longer had to buy from CSI, our market began to contract," Mr Lai said.

The Commissioner said serious steps were taken to listen to customers and to take notice of what they were saying.

"We established quality inspections and improved training and machinery. We have also recently began to hold stocks of finished goods to help us smooth out fluctuations in demand and reduce complaints of slow or late delivery.

"We have installed a computerised manufacturing and materials control system to provide essential information about current situations in our workshops and material stores," he said.

Mr Lai said although these were initial steps, there had already been tangible results with complaints from customers down.

"We even have satisfied customers and we can now enter competitive tenders and win them." he said.

The Commissioner noted with some irony that despite CSI not being a business in the sense that people understand the term, it had had to become more businesslike to survive.