Paper Title
Development of production community standards of Ban Dung, Udonthani Province
Abstract
The community products standards (CPS) contain the specifications of products being produced by the community. The standards aim to promote and support the community to use their local intelligence and local resources to develop the products for sale, generate employment and income, create value added for the quality of community products, and increase the acceptance and trust in the products among consumers. The Ministry of Industry had established the CPS and CPS certification to be ready to develop toward the national and international levels of standards. The current research had the objectives to 1) investigate the operation of community enterprises as manufacturers of the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) of Ban Dung District, UdonThani Province; 2) upgrade the production quality of community products of Ban Dung District toward the CPS certification. The research population included community products manufacturers of Ban Dung District, Udonthani Province. An open-ended interview form was used as a research instrument. The result on the background context of the research site showed that Ban Dung District as a district in Udonthani Province was the second most populous district in this province. Ban Dung Districtis divided by administrative areas into 13 sub-districts with 140 villages. The result of implementing the transfer of community products technologies through the training process to educate these manufacturers reported a total of 29 participating groups, all of which passed the screening of standard criteria and are ready to apply for the CPS certificate. The follow-up result of CPS certificate approval suggested that 18 out of the total 29 applicants or 62.07 % were approved for the CPS certificate, and another 11 applicants or 37.93 % were not, however waiting for further selection and approval by the Provincial Industry Office. The monitoring result on the operation of manufacturers groups by randomly interviewing with the presidents of community enterprises, and 8 groups of community products manufacturers suggested that most of the production processes or 87.50 % used natural materials, while another 12.50 % used non-natural materials. Regarding product quality, 50.00 % were 2 star-products; 37.50 % were 3-star products; and 12.50 % were 4-star products. It was found that these manufacturers faced similar problems including the lack of funding supportand revolving fund; contracted production spaces; lack of product distributors to distant markets; lack of attention of new generations in OTOP production;online marketing illiteracy; and packaging design issues.
Keywords - Community Products Standards (CPS), Community Enterprise, Otop Products,Ban Dung District, Udonthani Province