Riding the Manufacturing Expansion Wave: Long Hau Industrial Park Connects Green and Smart Factory Solutions
On the morning of September 16, at the Innovation Hub (Long Hau Center), Long Hau Industrial Park, in partnership with the Arup Group, Kyouwa Vietnam, and Sato Vietnam Solutions, held the program "Hands-On Experience with Smart Automation and Traceability Solutions," introducing a real-world digitized factory model for enterprises preparing to expand or relocate their production facilities. Unlike conventional theoretical seminars, the program focused on giving businesses the opportunity to directly observe and evaluate machinery in live operation, enabling them to directly compare it against their own product requirements.
Over 100 attendees demonstrated strong enterprise interest in automation and traceability solutions.
Three Major Challenges on the Table at Once
Food processing is currently one of Ho Chi Minh City's key industries, contributing approximately 14–15% of the city's total industrial production value. Despite maintaining solid growth in the early months of 2026, the industry is facing several simultaneous cost pressures:
- Data Regulations: Product and Goods Quality Law No. 78/2025/QH15 took effect on January 1, 2026. Decree 37/2026/ND-CP (dated January 23, 2026) mandates traceability for high-risk goods and requires enterprise systems to connect and share data with the National Traceability Information Portal. Circular 31/2026/TT-BCT, effective July 1, 2026, sets January 1, 2027 as the deadline for pre-circulation traceability requirements. The key operational requirement is the ability to produce traceability data within 24 hours of a request — a standard that is nearly impossible to meet with paper-based records. For exporters, this timeline coincides with the EU's Digital Product Passport (DPP) and the GS1 Sunrise 2027 roadmap.
- Labor and Productivity: Difficulty recruiting skilled workers and rising labor costs mean that scaling output by adding more workers is no longer an efficient model, particularly when handling urgent or large-scale orders.
- Facility Space and New Plant Standards: The need to expand production capacity and install modern production lines is placing significant demands on facility quality. The food processing and packaging industry has stringent requirements for wastewater treatment capacity, stable substations, truck access corridors, and floor load capacity for automated systems. Older, retrofitted facilities often fail to meet these technical specifications, forcing businesses to seek industrial park complexes with fully developed technical infrastructure and sound master planning from the outset.
These realities are pushing businesses toward critical decisions: where to invest in a new factory, at what scale, and with what machinery systems. According to experts at the event, restructuring production facilities cannot simply mean transplanting an old production line to a new location — it is an opportunity for businesses to upgrade technology and reorganize production more systematically.
Three Integrated Layers of a Smart Factory
The program connected these technology components into a cohesive process, helping businesses visualize a modern factory model through three layers:
Layer 1 – Machinery & Production Floor Automation (Kyouwa Vietnam): Kyouwa Vietnam (a member of Japan's Kyouwa Group, with over 60 years of experience, and operating a factory at Long Hau Industrial Park since 2011) has implemented more than 100 real-world projects. The company reported clear application results: raw material preprocessing staff reduced from 6–8 workers to just 1–2; forming and processing lines reaching speeds of 10,000–20,000 products per hour while requiring only 2–4 supervisors instead of 8–12; and high-speed automated packaging lines cutting line-staffing needs by 60%–70% while minimizing material waste.
Mr. Nguyen Sy Duong, Project Manager at Kyouwa Vietnam Co., Ltd., presenting on automated production lines for the food industry.
Layer 2 – Data Digitization & Instant Traceability (Sato Vietnam): To ensure an uninterrupted flow of product information, Sato Vietnam (part of Japan's SATO Group, with 86 years of experience developing Auto-ID recognition technology) connects machinery with automated barcode/QR code printing and scanning systems. Raw material quantification data, production batch codes, GTIN product codes, and GS1 SSCC pallet codes are all automatically recorded in real time. Data standardized to GS1 Digital Link enables direct integration with the National Traceability Portal, allowing factories to retrieve traceability information within seconds — the layer that directly determines a facility's ability to meet the 24-hour traceability requirement.
Businesses learning about Sato Vietnam's barcode solutions for instant traceability.
Layer 3 – Energy Optimization & Sustainable Development (Arup): Once operations and data are tightly integrated, consulting group Arup contributes smart energy management solutions. The Neuron platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and adjust cooling systems (Chiller/HVAC) based on real-time load, delivering approximately 10% energy savings with a payback period of under 2 years (a solution that won the international ASHRAE 2025 award). In parallel, the Conductor platform helps monitor emissions and ensure safety standards for production facilities.
The integration of these three layers shows that traceability data is generated directly during the weighing, labeling, and packaging processes. Automation and data digitization are therefore two interdependent components of a single investment strategy.
Mr. Felix Chan, Head of Sustainable Digital Technology at Arup, discussing the application of AI toward Zero-Carbon goals.
Long Hau – Can Giuoc Area: A Logistics Hub Connecting the Food Supply Chain
A factory model optimized for machinery and data standardization can only realize its full value when built on a seamlessly connected infrastructure foundation. In the area bordering southern Ho Chi Minh City, a series of key transportation projects set for completion in 2026 is creating a strong foundation for factories to modernize their goods-flow processes:
A factory model optimized for machinery and data standardization can only realize its full value when built on a seamlessly connected infrastructure foundation. In the area bordering southern Ho Chi Minh City, a series of key transportation projects set for completion in 2026 is creating a strong foundation for factories to modernize their goods-flow processes:
- Uninterrupted Expressway Access: The Ben Luc – Long Thanh Expressway is nearly complete and set to open along its full length, creating a direct freight transport corridor from the Mekong Delta to the Southeast region without passing through Ho Chi Minh City's congested inner-city roads.
- Rapid Connectivity to Airports and Seaports: Long Thanh International Airport is expected to begin commercial operations in Q4 2026. The 76.3 km Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 3 is nearing completion and will connect to this expressway at the My Yen interchange. Toward the seaport, the area connects to Long An International Port via the DT830 route, while the Saigon – Hiep Phuoc port cluster and SPCT container terminal are only about 3 km away.
Binh Khanh Bridge on the Ben Luc – Long Thanh Expressway (5 km from Long Hau Industrial Park) is nearing completion, with opening scheduled for September 30, connecting the Mekong Delta with Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai.This infrastructure network is repositioning the Can Giuoc – Hiep Phuoc corridor: transforming it from a peripheral area south of Ho Chi Minh City into a critical junction between the region's two largest goods-flow directions — agricultural and aquaculture raw materials arriving from the Mekong Delta, and finished goods departing via the seaport cluster, airport, and eastern expressway network. For the food industry, where transport time directly impacts raw material quality and cold-chain costs, locating production-warehousing-distribution operations at this junction point offers distinct value compared to positioning at the end of a single transport route.
Convenient Last-Mile Delivery: The Long Hau area is approximately 19 km from central Ho Chi Minh City and about 12 km from the Phu My Hung urban area, placing it directly adjacent to a consumer market of over 14 million people following the city's administrative restructuring. Given the specific demands of the food industry, locating production-warehousing-distribution clusters at this transit junction allows businesses to both access fresh raw materials at the lowest possible cost and reach inner-city retail channels within a short timeframe, reducing additional costs from extended transport routes.
Situated in an area with significant remaining development potential, Long Hau Industrial Park is developing into a green and smart industrial park complex offering multiple space options: build-to-suit land leasing, ready-built factory leasing, or multi-story factory leasing with modular unit divisions. This structure allows businesses to strategically allocate initial capital between facility costs and operating costs. As a result, manufacturers can optimize the share of their budget dedicated to basic construction infrastructure, freeing up capital to invest in automated production lines and digital data infrastructure.
Convenient Last-Mile Delivery: The Long Hau area is approximately 19 km from central Ho Chi Minh City and about 12 km from the Phu My Hung urban area, placing it directly adjacent to a consumer market of over 14 million people following the city's administrative restructuring. Given the specific demands of the food industry, locating production-warehousing-distribution clusters at this transit junction allows businesses to both access fresh raw materials at the lowest possible cost and reach inner-city retail channels within a short timeframe, reducing additional costs from extended transport routes.
Situated in an area with significant remaining development potential, Long Hau Industrial Park is developing into a green and smart industrial park complex offering multiple space options: build-to-suit land leasing, ready-built factory leasing, or multi-story factory leasing with modular unit divisions. This structure allows businesses to strategically allocate initial capital between facility costs and operating costs. As a result, manufacturers can optimize the share of their budget dedicated to basic construction infrastructure, freeing up capital to invest in automated production lines and digital data infrastructure.
Long Hau Industrial Park – A green and smart industrial park complex located at the southern gateway to Ho Chi Minh City.
Sharing insights on the company's development direction, Mr. Bui Le Anh Hieu – Marketing & Business Director, Long Hau Corporation, emphasized:
"Enterprise demands today have changed. Rather than focusing solely on lease rates or land area, investors are placing greater emphasis on whether an industrial park's infrastructure can support automated production lines, digital data systems, and emissions-reduction standards. Long Hau's strategy is to develop products that closely align with real market demands — creating green, smart products that support long-term operating cost optimization, while remaining a close partner to businesses from the project planning stage through to actual operational deployment."
"Enterprise demands today have changed. Rather than focusing solely on lease rates or land area, investors are placing greater emphasis on whether an industrial park's infrastructure can support automated production lines, digital data systems, and emissions-reduction standards. Long Hau's strategy is to develop products that closely align with real market demands — creating green, smart products that support long-term operating cost optimization, while remaining a close partner to businesses from the project planning stage through to actual operational deployment."
About Long Hau Industrial Park
Long Hau Industrial Park is developed by Long Hau Corporation (stock ticker: LHG, HOSE), operating since 2006 in Can Giuoc Commune, Tay Ninh Province. Guided by a vision of building an eco-friendly, green, and smart industrial complex, Long Hau offers a comprehensive suite of solutions including industrial land, ready-built factories, multi-story factories, and in-depth investment support services. The Long Hau Center building, together with the Innovation Hub space, serves as a destination for networking, technology solution connections, and partnership development for the local business community.
Contact Information: 0906 938 599 | www.longhau.com.vn
