Date: 20th March 2014
Typically, the received wisdom is that it is only economic to do this for around 5000 units minimum order quantity (MOQ) and is fraught with potential problems such as who to trust and how to manage the logistics of importing. Another common problem is how to control quality? (More on these things below).
We are in collaboration with a UK company that has offices in China: Sorcit.
However, before you pick up the phone, it is worth reviewing some of the main issues that people face when embarking on this kind of venture…
Where to start?.. Design and development…
A good rule of thumb I believe is to do all the design and development work in the UK and get the design as close as possible to the form it will have as a product before taking things overseas. This needs to take into account the manufacturing processes that will be adopted. For instance if manufacturing involves injection moulds then the design will need to be accommodate best practice.
Proof of concept prototyping…
As always, it is essential to begin with a proof-of-concept prototype before product design can being in earnest. It is a false economy to leap to fine detail design if you are not yet sure of the best design or even whether it will work!
3D modelling and rapid prototyping…
Once you have the functioning version working well (and also, in most cases, after you have applied for a patent) the design can be 3D modelled as part of the product design process. This serves several purposes:
1) ‘Renderings’ (high-resolution snapshots, more or less) from the 3D model can be used for marketing and financial purposes.
2) The 3D model can be used for 3D printing.
3) The 3D model can be used to get accurate costings for tooling and manufacturing.
(NB: there is often some overlap here because sometimes the best way to make a part for proof of concept is to 3D print it. So some or even all of the parts of a proof-of-concept prototype may already be modelled).
Bridge tooling…
One good idea is ‘bridge tooling’ -get relatively low cost moulds made in aluminium alloy (rather than steel) along with a run of samples as a pilot manufacturing exercise and use these for testing and demonstrating to potential clients before moving on to full scale manufacturing.
Complexity…
But the process of making injection moulded plastic parts is just one aspect of a project. What to do if your project is quite complex and has mechanical aspects (moving components), and/or electronics? What if there are fabric parts? Or those made in wood or another organic material? This is not easy to answer directly. The indirect answer is surround yourself with good people and build a bullet-proof business plan using real data.
Good team…
Establish a good team of trusted collaborators: engineers, patent agents, business advisors and so on.
Business plan…
The key thing is to come at the problems from a business perspective: how am I going to sell this? This decision then informs all the activities. One overall objective should be to feed useful data into your business plan. So a present activity might be to make a proof of concept prototype but the objective is to be able to prove that it works and the aim is to present this fact to an interested investor; or you might be 3D modelling a casing for an electronic device but the objective is to use that to obtain accurate tooling and manufacturing costs, again to feed into the business plan and again the aim is to win the commitment of an investor.
Golden rule…
A golden rule is always build-test-modify-retest and keep doing that until it works the way you want it to. An interesting question is: what to test for? Initially the test is simply: will it work? But other tests may apply as well (see below ‘Mark Twain’).
What about intellectual property infringement and copying…?
One way to avoid this is to manufacture the components (or some of them) in China but to assemble them in the UK.
What about Certification, CE marking, British Standards…?
This is too big a subject to cover very much here and varies widely from case to case. Generally speaking you are obliged to be able to demonstrate ‘due diligence’ in complying with all known applicable laws and standards. This can be difficult because inventions can be hard to classify so it is not easy to know what standards to apply. If something goes wrong and you are sued, the judge’s decision will come down to whether there was adequate due diligence before launching your product. Test labs can be used to cover these aspects of the project (for a fee!).
(A note about design. There can come a point when the design is not driven primarily by function or how it looks and feels but by the need to comply with one or other standard. This needs to be assessed as early as possible to avoid expensive mistakes: you don’t want to have a beautiful, fully functioning and tested device that is illegal to sell).
Mark Twain….
But the golden rule applies always – make something and test it. But as hinted at above, what is the test for? The test might be ‘does it work?’ or ‘does it last long enough before wearing out or breaking?’ or ‘does anyone like it?’ or ‘does it comply?’ So the issue is often: what is the question not what is the answer! Or in other words a serious problem can be not knowing what you need to know. To quote Mark Twain (inventor and investor in inventions) ‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so...’ The solution as mentioned before: build a team of trusted collaborators.
Don’t simply hand it over to the Chinese….!
Generally speaking the worst thing to do is simply to hand over the responsibility to some company in China. To come clean, I have done this more than once and got my fingers burnt in terms of quality: I sold over 90% of those products (12,000 of about 13,000 items in total) but I was caught out by things that I hadn’t anticipated. To avoid this kind of mistake you need people on the ground in China that are experienced and trustworthy.
Sorcit…
Getting back to the question of how to manufacture in China…when you are ready, this company might be able to help.
They can organise the manufacture of as few as 500 units.
Contact David Fannin (david@sorcit.co.uk) directly for more information.
(Disclaimer: PES Ltd offers the above as free advice but cannot be held responsible for any losses due to actions taken by clients or readers of this blog. If in doubt seek qualified legal advice before proceeding.)