ONE day in 2001, an engineer from Cimahi, West Java, came to see Jusman Syafii Djamal, the then CEO of PT Dirgantara Indonesia (DI). The engineer proposed that DI produce molds of cake tins usually imported from Taiwan, cutting its price locally by 50 percent. The offer was accepted.

Made by DIs highly trained unit of 500 workers, the cake tin molds turned out to be quite competitive in Cimahi, albeit the returns were not worth mentioning. That