BUSINESS BITS

Fired up
GERALDINE BULAON-DUCUSIN

In 1991, the house of Ferdinand D. Crisologo is San Juan City caught fire. That experience led him to develop an innovative but lower-costing precast, fire-resistant concrete doorjamb – a product that over a decade later was to win two national awards and one international award for its inventiveness. Ten years later, in 2001, Crisologo put up his own company, G & H Design Philippines, to commercialize the product along with other proprietary construction material that he had developed along the way.

Today, in an effort to make more people benefit from his cheaper and more durable construction materials, G & H is now censing and franchising investors all over the country who are interested in manufacturing them for particular territorial markets.

“There are so many orders for the products within outside of Manila but until now, we can’t manufacture enough for everybody,” he says. “I thought or remedying the situation by franchising or licensing investors to manufacture the products in their respective areas. Under this business arrangement, I will supply them with the technology for producing the precast concrete doorjambs and wall form blocks with the same quality as the ones we’re making.”

Crisologo put up G & H in 2001 with only P200,000 in initial capital, using the funds to purchase the machinery needed to manufacture the precast concrete doorjamb as well as a service vehicle. Most of his capital came from his personal savings and from a loan from the Department of Science and Technology’s Technology Application and Promotion Institute (DOST-TAPI).

Many people took interest in his products when he introduced them in construction industry trade exhibits. “There was such a huge demand for them but my initial capital wasn’t enough to generate supply,” he recalls.

Thus, in 2003, G & H accepted the invitation of another company, Innovative Concrete Elements Inc., to join them so they could manufacture the products together. They then started producing the construction materials for individuals as well as for companies engaged in various construction projects – housing, commercial, condominium, hospital, school, and industrial buildings – within and outside Metro Manila. Among their clients were Gawad Kalinga, Yazaki-Torres, Phil-Export, Richfed Realty Inc., Southwood Subdivision, and Benami Manufacturing Corp.

But the production of his construction material under the joint venture could hardly cope with the demand. Crisologo says that in the case of Gawad Kalinga, in particular, they could supply only about one percent of what its low-cost housing projects needs for the urban poor, so Gawad Kalinga either has to produce the construction material on its own or buy them from others.

It was primarily for the reason that this year, Crisologo decided to revive G & H Design Philippines – this time to license and franchise prospective inventors to manufacture his propriety products for specific market territories. He did so after adding precast concrete wall form blocks to his product line, followed by precast concrete fences, stairs, and window jambs.

He is confident of the cost advantage of his construction materials. His concrete doorjambs costs only P800 per unit compared to Constructing a house or building using his precast concrete wall form black would cost only P795.75 per square meter (sq m) as compared to P1,191.85 per sq m using a Class A concrete hollow blocks, and to P1,104.35 per sq m using Class B concrete hollow blocks.

Starting with only two workers – his wife and himself – Crisologo now has six or more people helping him fabricate the welding molds, vibrators, and dowels for making the construction material that he would supply to G & H franchisees and licensees.

Crisologo’s intimate knowledge of construction materials stems from his long experience in handling and using them. Way back in the 1970a, he had worked as contractor specializing in the finishing aspects of construction. In the mid-1980s, right after finishing his architecture studies at age 33, he went to the Middle East and worked there as an architectural engineer for a company that manufactured precast construction materials, later becoming its manager.

During his working stint abroad, he got exposed to high-technology pre-cast manufacturing techniques – an exposure that enabled him to come up with his own ideas for construction products.

Crisologo returned to the Philippines in 1991 for good to start his own family. He initially ventured into the transportation business but it did not prosper, so he decided to pursue the innovative ideas that had been percolating in his mind since working in the Middle East. Some people regarded them as “crazy ideas,” but he proved them wrong that same year when he came up with his precast concrete doorjamb to replace the one destroyed by the fire that hit his house.

But it was only in 2000 – nine years later – that Crisologo applied for and was granted a patent to his invention. It was a move that paved the way for its value to be finally recognized in the construction industry. In 2002, his precast concrete doorjamb concept was awarded second place in the creative research category of the DOST’s Technology Application and Promotion Institute awards, which later proclaimed is as the “Invention of the Year” in 2004. That same year, Crisologo’s construction material concept also won the Gold Medal from the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

Crisologo does his product marketing primarily through participation in the trade fairs regularly held by the DOST. “Most people become very interested when they see how effective the technology of my construction products is,” he says. “They see that the products are of good quality and that their price is really competitive to prevailing market prices.”

He is highly protective of the quality and integrity of his products, and its way of people who try to alter the way are produced. He cites an instance when one producer used a different kind of cement in making them. He laments: “That producer thought that all cement products are the same, so he ended up with form blocks that cracked easily.” For this reason, he strictly requires prospective franchisees of his propriety construction materials not to change or tamper with the methods and materual that he had developed for making them.

“Di mo na maloloko ang consumers ngayon [You can no longer fool consumers today],” he says. “They know if your product is good or if it’s just propped up by advertising.”

Now working full-time with G & H, Crisologo sees a bright future for his precast products: “The materials for producing my precast concrete products are easily available locally, so we’re not much affected by changes in the price of these materials in the world market.”