Heading up to Taiping (again) to visit RIVERSTONE

NEXTINSIGHT will be travelling today to check out the second new factory of Riverstone Holdings in Taiping. 

Our itinerary: Fly to Penang on SilkAir, then catch a 1.5-hour coach ride to Taiping. Map: GoogleEach of the two new factories, completed a year apart, has a production capacity of about 1 billion gloves.

This has raised the Singapore-listed company's total capacity to 5.2 billion gloves a year, which are used by healthcare workers and workers in IT cleanrooms around the world.

Also on the day trip will be 8 analysts from 8 houses.

We hope to learn more about the manufacturing processes in the latest factory, which incorporates extensive automation to improve productivity.

We will fly from Singapore to Penang and then catch a 1.5-hour coach ride to Taiping, the second largest town in the state of Perak after Ipoh.

Aside from Taiping, Riverstone has facilities also in Kuala Lumpur, Thailand and China. 

The two plants in Taiping sit on part of a 30-acre site (equivalent to 30 soccer fields) which was bought for RM12.4 million in April 2013 and will be developed in five phases.

Yes, a year from now, a new humming factory under Phase 3 -- currently under construction -- is expected to start churning out another 1 billion gloves.