Sutrisno Silver business is hereditary, as Kotagede has been the center of the silver, copper and gold industries since the days of the Islamic kingdom of Mataram.

In early 1983, he started his work in silver and gold plating services and also manufacturing ceremonial wedding accessories in a businesss owned by his family. To increase the capacity of the business he studied at the Industrial Academy while working in plating services and manufacturing copper accessories.

He began working with a silver exporter in Kotagede. From there, Mr Sutrisno got a lot of knowledge about the processes of manufacture and standardization (QC) of filigree products. Mr Sutrisno also began to be trusted to handle bulk orders for Balinese dancer wall decorations.

In 2002, Sutrisno heard about Pekerti through field staff and began diligently sending samples in. Currently he fulfills some of Pekerti orders and a few buyers from Bali.

Initially, Sutrisno was disappointed with Pekerti for some time, because of a lack of orders. However, with assistance, guidance and encouragement from field staff, he became more enthusiastic and was always looking forward to receiving orders from Pekerti. And with his patience and unyielding spirit, the long-awaited orders arrived, and he continued to be inspired for new pieces by looking in books and magazines, and send new samples to Pekerti.

In fulfilling orders from Pekerti Sutrisno sub-contracts the orders to other groups, and he is then responsible for the quality and the fulfillment of the order. He is active every day doing quality control at the sub-contract workshop. There is a strong desire from Sutrisno to have his own workshop, however, he does not possess enough capital and the buyers also have not been significant enough for him to make his own business.

Since working with Pekerti, he has begun to understand the rules of Fair Trade. Although not yet fully able to implement them, he felt that the existing principles of Fair Trade were indeed suitable for development in his business activities.

After 8 years in the business, his products were developed. Type of products manufactured were accessories including necklace, bracelet, and brooch, and decorations of copper and silver filigree.

Copper raw material comes from recyclables collectors, and silver is purchased from Logam Mulia. The materials used to produce filigree are silver and brass.

Because the filigree craft is a full hand made product, the results cannot be exactly the same every time. Filigree products cannot be made by machines, so these are true handicrafts, and cannot be replicated perfectly. Native Indonesian filigree motifs are only produced in Yogyakarta and Kendari.

Price competition is a major problem in product sales of filigree, and competition in lowering prices is very detrimental to crafters.