THE noisy timber cutters and finishers were leaving dust all over the warehouse. Employees were earnestly working, along with Erie Sasmito, the owner of Permata Furniture. On Friday at the end of March, he was meticulously supervising around 150 workers engaged in furniture production.

Erie wanted to see nobody slackening in the work as it could affect product quality. In his warehouse at the tip of Kampung Bubakan, Semarang, Central Java, he was