An assembly line for auto seats at Autocom’s plant in the Thaco Chu Lai Industrial Zone in Quang Nam. — Photo courtesy of Thaco

Thaco Auto Seat Plant (Autocom) is expected to earn US$10.5 million from exports this year, up from $6.2 million last year.

The 12,000sq.m Autocom in the Thaco Chu Lai Industrial Zone in Quang Nam Province has a capacity of producing 100,000 sets of auto seats/beds for the domestic market and 300,000 sets of seat covers for exports annually using 100 per cent locally sourced materials.

Autocom’ s main products include passenger car seats (Kia, Mazda, and Peugeot), truck seats (Towner, Ollin and Forland) and bus seats (Thaco).

It has also produced and supplied high-quality auto accessories and interiors with modern designs such as seat covers, wrap seat covers, car steering wheel covers, gear covers, floor mats, car covers, truck tarpaulins, backrest sets, neck pillows, utility bags, and others.

But seat covers are the plant’s main exports. They are made from high-quality materials such as leather, PVC and felts that are resistant to fire and scratches, helping increase the aesthetics of and add value to the vehicle.

Thanks to a diverse range of models, high durability and advanced features that help create comfort, the plant's seat products have been bought and appreciated by large car manufacturers.

It exports items such as passenger car seats and gear stick covers to top-tier car brands such as Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Haval around the world, with South Korea and Malaysia being key markets.

In 2019, it earned $5 million from exports of seat covers and $1.2 million from gear stick covers.

It targets increasing them to $8 million and $2.5 million this year besides expanding its markets to the US, Thailand and Japan.

Autocom will this year develop a variety of products to meet specific customer requirements such as high-end specialised car seats, ship seats, car seats for children, and other accessories.

It also plans to increase annual exports of seat covers and gear stick covers to Korean partners to 150,000 and 1.2 million, and expand its domestic market by entering the supply chain for bus seats and car seat cushions.

The plant is equipped with modern technology and machinery and equipment such as cutting and stitching lines with equipment like automatic CNC cutting machines, automatic fabric spreading machines and automatic diagram printing machines imported from Germany and Japan.

Seat cushions are manufactured on an automatic line with turntables and latest foaming machines imported from Italy. Finished seat cushions are tested for hardness and elasticity by specialised testing machines imported from the US.

The assembly stage of finished seat products is carried out on automatic conveyors to improve productivity and quality.

To satisfy export standards, the plant applies a quality management system in accordance with IATF 16949 and ISO 9001: 2015 standards. — VNS