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Any advice or resources on how to scale a manufacturing business other than outsource it all to China? I have some ideas of things I can make myself, but then w

Any advice or resources on how to scale a manufacturing business other than outsource it all to China? I have some ideas of things I can make myself, but then when it comes to shipping them off to a factory in Shenzen, I lose interest.

SteveVeilStream 2y ago
There are a lot of categories of products where it still makes sense to do the manufacturing close to the customer. Take a look at the window industry for example. There is still a lot of manufacturing in North America, both small and large. Zoom into the industrial area of any major center and start looking at names to get some ideas. There are also some folks that are trying to break the mold entirely. Check out https://www.srtxlabs.com/ https://www.srtxlabs.com/
- _glass 2y ago
  This is a really good idea. This spatial exploration seems to be a normal thing, here for my location in Hamburg, Germany: https://hamburg-business.com/en/commercial-real-estate/commercial-real-estate-and-land/location-map https://hamburg-business.com/en/commercial-real-estate/comme...
grp 2y ago
Nearly without joking: Karl Marx.. As you seem to want to acquire or manage the means of production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
- anon291 2y ago
  Well yeah, I'm a capitalist. A good capitalist wants centralized control of the means of production, like the communists. They're just honest in their intentions
  - grp 2y ago
    Sure :) Hard to not give a somewhat generic answer without the kind of ideas of things that need to be manufactured (and in which area). Maybe try to find companies like Rtone (I'm not money related with them): https://rtone.fr/en/ https://rtone.fr/en/ Or go to fairs/shows for equivalent ideas of things, there is always those behind-the-scene workers around. Honest intentions but hidden (private) knowledge. Wishing you the best !
michaelt 2y ago
One option is contract manufacturing - which avoids the need for you to set up your own factory and hire your own employees. At least in the electronics sector, there are contract manufacturers in the west that are happy to deal with small-to-medium-volume production runs. Their websites will sometimes make them sound a bit aloof, making out they're big and high tech and expensive, but that's just marketing. If an electronics contract manufacturer says they work in aerospace, defence and security, medical, oil and gas and their website has photos of jet fighters and operating theatres? What they really mean is they're set up for production runs as small as a few hundred items, they're happy to deal with a bit of bureaucracy on your end, and they'll guarantee they won't cut corners (like substituting components with cheaper or more easily available ones) unless you tell them to. A catch, of course, is the minimum orders involved. Automated assembly machines may have the same running costs regardless of the wages of the country they're in - but those machines need to be set up and reconfigured when changing between orders. I don't know what wizardry lets PCBWay offer surface mount PCB assembly for $30 for 20 boards, but you can't match it while paying western skilled worker wages. So if you ask a western contract manufacturer for <300 boards, the price will be substantially more expensive than Chinese manufacturing.
- tomjen3 2y ago
  I imagine the wizardry is an industrial robot and some custom software
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > surface mount PCB assembly for $30 for 20 boards Often uneconomical to set up pick and place for just 20 boards. Quite often the wizardry is a little middle-aged Chinese lady who wields a vacuum tweezer like a chopstick, from 9am to 9pm six days a week.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      Manual assembly is indeed a common practice. But it's skilled work, so it'll be paying skilled wages. And you need an inspection step - especially if you're working with BGAs and other difficult components. Presumably for $30 they're shipping out boards without doing a power-on test - which makes visual/x-ray inspection even more important. And even when the assembly is manual, you've still got to get the right parts to the right assembly station at the right time. Can't be putting in a 5% 10k 0805 resistor if the design calls for 1%. Even with manual assembly, if they're making a profit at the prices they're charging they must be running a very efficient operation indeed.
Aurornis 2y ago
Are you trying to have a product made? Or are you really just interested in the manufacturing process itself? It depends on the product, obviously. For many things you have domestic manufacturing options, but people either overlook them or immediately seek out the cheapest alternative (often China). There are small contract manufacturers all over the United States. Doing your own manufacturing of electronic goods is a common trap for people with just enough experience to know that it’s possible. Nearly everyone who has done it will recommend against it. You have to choose if you want to be in the business of making and selling a product, or in the business of setting up and operating a lot of difficult manufacturing machines and processes. People who try to do both at the same time usually get overwhelmed, delayed, and burned out.
- anon291 2y ago
  Interested in the manufacturing process itself
pencerw 2y ago
(note: i wrote the link in the OP) as it happens, i spent about a decade working on an electronic product that, for complex reasons, wasn't suitable for outsourcing overseas. i wrote a reasonably long and detailed post about this process recently, which you can find here: https://scopeofwork.net/proof/ https://scopeofwork.net/proof/ i also wrote about it a bunch on my personal blog; you can find the relevant posts here: https://pencerw.com/feed?tag=thepublicradio https://pencerw.com/feed?tag=thepublicradio
- bjt 2y ago
  Thank you for writing and sharing this! I very emphatically agree that we need more people showing us the honorable parts of messy things, and wish I could say so as beautifully as your piece does.
bsder 2y ago
Look for any and all of the sponsors/people who work with the Battlebots groups. While some of them are big names (Solidworks) you will also find lots of little guys flagged in there who are doing the contract manufacturing. But, it won't be $100 like China. Expect minimum NRE of about $5K to make it worthwhile to them. And, please understand that, even so, you are still an unprofitable nuisance--so be SUPER polite when dealing with them. Also please understand that the manufacturer talking to you is at the top of a pyramid of problems being caused by your choices, part manufacturers, material suppliers, etc.--their bad day is generally due to everybody else (including you!) However, since you are dealing with real people face to face and being really nice, you will find that they often will go an extra mile for you that you would never get otherwise. (One shop I worked with had yield problems on assembling a board. It turned out the big manufacturer created a really brain damaged part whose footprint just sucked terribly--it was so bad that they quickly EOLd the part and changed the footprint. We had ordered 100 boards expecting that we needed 50 with lots of lead. Of course, that wasn't happening. One worker there sat down, hand tinned an almost microscopic chip 100+ times and resoldered those chips repeatedly until we had fifty. Needless to say, I funnelled any and all business I could through them from that point forward.) Any company willing to deal with you at low volumes should be treated like you have found gold nuggets--because you have.
m463 2y ago
I rarely hear about stuff being done in the US, especially electronics. But I did like reading they did it reading the book "Schiit Happened": https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514355027 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514355027

SteveVeilStream 2y ago

There are a lot of categories of products where it still makes sense to do the manufacturing close to the customer. Take a look at the window industry for example. There is still a lot of manufacturing in North America, both small and large. Zoom into the industrial area of any major center and start looking at names to get some ideas. There are also some folks that are trying to break the mold entirely. Check out https://www.srtxlabs.com/ https://www.srtxlabs.com/

_glass 2y ago
This is a really good idea. This spatial exploration seems to be a normal thing, here for my location in Hamburg, Germany: https://hamburg-business.com/en/commercial-real-estate/commercial-real-estate-and-land/location-map https://hamburg-business.com/en/commercial-real-estate/comme...

grp 2y ago

Nearly without joking: Karl Marx.. As you seem to want to acquire or manage the means of production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production

anon291 2y ago
Well yeah, I'm a capitalist. A good capitalist wants centralized control of the means of production, like the communists. They're just honest in their intentions
- grp 2y ago
  Sure :) Hard to not give a somewhat generic answer without the kind of ideas of things that need to be manufactured (and in which area). Maybe try to find companies like Rtone (I'm not money related with them): https://rtone.fr/en/ https://rtone.fr/en/ Or go to fairs/shows for equivalent ideas of things, there is always those behind-the-scene workers around. Honest intentions but hidden (private) knowledge. Wishing you the best !

michaelt 2y ago

One option is contract manufacturing - which avoids the need for you to set up your own factory and hire your own employees. At least in the electronics sector, there are contract manufacturers in the west that are happy to deal with small-to-medium-volume production runs. Their websites will sometimes make them sound a bit aloof, making out they're big and high tech and expensive, but that's just marketing. If an electronics contract manufacturer says they work in aerospace, defence and security, medical, oil and gas and their website has photos of jet fighters and operating theatres? What they really mean is they're set up for production runs as small as a few hundred items, they're happy to deal with a bit of bureaucracy on your end, and they'll guarantee they won't cut corners (like substituting components with cheaper or more easily available ones) unless you tell them to. A catch, of course, is the minimum orders involved. Automated assembly machines may have the same running costs regardless of the wages of the country they're in - but those machines need to be set up and reconfigured when changing between orders. I don't know what wizardry lets PCBWay offer surface mount PCB assembly for $30 for 20 boards, but you can't match it while paying western skilled worker wages. So if you ask a western contract manufacturer for <300 boards, the price will be substantially more expensive than Chinese manufacturing.

tomjen3 2y ago
I imagine the wizardry is an industrial robot and some custom software
- pjc50 2y ago
  > surface mount PCB assembly for $30 for 20 boards Often uneconomical to set up pick and place for just 20 boards. Quite often the wizardry is a little middle-aged Chinese lady who wields a vacuum tweezer like a chopstick, from 9am to 9pm six days a week.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    Manual assembly is indeed a common practice. But it's skilled work, so it'll be paying skilled wages. And you need an inspection step - especially if you're working with BGAs and other difficult components. Presumably for $30 they're shipping out boards without doing a power-on test - which makes visual/x-ray inspection even more important. And even when the assembly is manual, you've still got to get the right parts to the right assembly station at the right time. Can't be putting in a 5% 10k 0805 resistor if the design calls for 1%. Even with manual assembly, if they're making a profit at the prices they're charging they must be running a very efficient operation indeed.

Aurornis 2y ago

Are you trying to have a product made? Or are you really just interested in the manufacturing process itself? It depends on the product, obviously. For many things you have domestic manufacturing options, but people either overlook them or immediately seek out the cheapest alternative (often China). There are small contract manufacturers all over the United States. Doing your own manufacturing of electronic goods is a common trap for people with just enough experience to know that it’s possible. Nearly everyone who has done it will recommend against it. You have to choose if you want to be in the business of making and selling a product, or in the business of setting up and operating a lot of difficult manufacturing machines and processes. People who try to do both at the same time usually get overwhelmed, delayed, and burned out.

anon291 2y ago
Interested in the manufacturing process itself

pencerw 2y ago

(note: i wrote the link in the OP) as it happens, i spent about a decade working on an electronic product that, for complex reasons, wasn't suitable for outsourcing overseas. i wrote a reasonably long and detailed post about this process recently, which you can find here: https://scopeofwork.net/proof/ https://scopeofwork.net/proof/ i also wrote about it a bunch on my personal blog; you can find the relevant posts here: https://pencerw.com/feed?tag=thepublicradio https://pencerw.com/feed?tag=thepublicradio

bjt 2y ago
Thank you for writing and sharing this! I very emphatically agree that we need more people showing us the honorable parts of messy things, and wish I could say so as beautifully as your piece does.

bsder 2y ago

Look for any and all of the sponsors/people who work with the Battlebots groups. While some of them are big names (Solidworks) you will also find lots of little guys flagged in there who are doing the contract manufacturing. But, it won't be $100 like China. Expect minimum NRE of about $5K to make it worthwhile to them. And, please understand that, even so, you are still an unprofitable nuisance--so be SUPER polite when dealing with them. Also please understand that the manufacturer talking to you is at the top of a pyramid of problems being caused by your choices, part manufacturers, material suppliers, etc.--their bad day is generally due to everybody else (including you!) However, since you are dealing with real people face to face and being really nice, you will find that they often will go an extra mile for you that you would never get otherwise. (One shop I worked with had yield problems on assembling a board. It turned out the big manufacturer created a really brain damaged part whose footprint just sucked terribly--it was so bad that they quickly EOLd the part and changed the footprint. We had ordered 100 boards expecting that we needed 50 with lots of lead. Of course, that wasn't happening. One worker there sat down, hand tinned an almost microscopic chip 100+ times and resoldered those chips repeatedly until we had fifty. Needless to say, I funnelled any and all business I could through them from that point forward.) Any company willing to deal with you at low volumes should be treated like you have found gold nuggets--because you have.

m463 2y ago

I rarely hear about stuff being done in the US, especially electronics. But I did like reading they did it reading the book "Schiit Happened": https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514355027 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514355027