Help 'onshoring' the m/facture of a product from China to UK
Discussion
I'm involved in a business that currently manufactures and imports a niche product in China. It's basically a box with some motors and a circuit board - nothing hugely complicated.
It strikes me that this could be manufactured in the UK - thereby giving me greater control over the manufacturing process - but I need help, primarily with getting something called a "design pack" of the circuitry required, but also with the whole tooling and manufacturing. I have to be honest and say my background is in finance and I kind of fell into the business I now have but I really have no training or background and only minimal experience in the engineering side of things so I'm out of my depth here.
Two questions then:
1) Can anyone recommend someone to help me create the "design pack" of the electronics?
2) What support, if any, is out there for businesses who want to 'onshore'? I don't just mean Government support but also the private sector. I just need help here.
Thanks in advance.
It strikes me that this could be manufactured in the UK - thereby giving me greater control over the manufacturing process - but I need help, primarily with getting something called a "design pack" of the circuitry required, but also with the whole tooling and manufacturing. I have to be honest and say my background is in finance and I kind of fell into the business I now have but I really have no training or background and only minimal experience in the engineering side of things so I'm out of my depth here.
Two questions then:
1) Can anyone recommend someone to help me create the "design pack" of the electronics?
2) What support, if any, is out there for businesses who want to 'onshore'? I don't just mean Government support but also the private sector. I just need help here.
Thanks in advance.
seaninog said:
I'm involved in a business that currently manufactures and imports a niche product in China. It's basically a box with some motors and a circuit board - nothing hugely complicated.
If your business is already manufacturing it you must already have the drawings, circuit diagrams, bills of materials.However if you are simply buying an item designed and manufactured by a third party you need to start at the beginning and either reverse engineer it or design a new one.
Without knowing what the thing is, ie what it does and how big it is, it is rather hard to recommend your next step.
Ean218 said:
If your business is already manufacturing it you must already have the drawings, circuit diagrams, bills of materials.
However if you are simply buying an item designed and manufactured by a third party you need to start at the beginning and either reverse engineer it or design a new one.
Without knowing what the thing is, ie what it does and how big it is, it is rather hard to recommend your next step.
It's the latter. I have no design drawings and so this need to be reverse engineered. If this is your bag then please drop me a PM with your contact details and I'll let you low and see if it's one for you.However if you are simply buying an item designed and manufactured by a third party you need to start at the beginning and either reverse engineer it or design a new one.
Without knowing what the thing is, ie what it does and how big it is, it is rather hard to recommend your next step.
JPJPJP said:
Approximately what price is the item to buy from the Chinese manufacturer?
Nothing like the actual cost of the item to the business, so it's not really worth looking at it that way.The manufacturer will sell on an ex-works basis. Add around £1600 per shipping container (or around £80-100 per pallet), then duty on top, plus VAT (which presumably you'll be able to claim back).
The other issue is the near six week transit time. If you use a pallet of widgets each week, you need to have a pallet delivered every week. That means that you need to have six pallets bought and in transit for every pallet you have on hand - which is an awful lot of cashflow tied up.
Once you've taken all that into account you can work out a "real" cost of the goods to the company, and when you compare that to UK manufacture it looks a whole lot better.
davepoth said:
Nothing like the actual cost of the item to the business, so it's not really worth looking at it that way.
The manufacturer will sell on an ex-works basis. Add around £1600 per shipping container (or around £80-100 per pallet), then duty on top, plus VAT (which presumably you'll be able to claim back).
The other issue is the near six week transit time. If you use a pallet of widgets each week, you need to have a pallet delivered every week. That means that you need to have six pallets bought and in transit for every pallet you have on hand - which is an awful lot of cashflow tied up.
Once you've taken all that into account you can work out a "real" cost of the goods to the company, and when you compare that to UK manufacture it looks a whole lot better.
but if the landed cost of the item is $1, it is going to be harder to make it work in the UK than if the landed cost is $250The manufacturer will sell on an ex-works basis. Add around £1600 per shipping container (or around £80-100 per pallet), then duty on top, plus VAT (which presumably you'll be able to claim back).
The other issue is the near six week transit time. If you use a pallet of widgets each week, you need to have a pallet delivered every week. That means that you need to have six pallets bought and in transit for every pallet you have on hand - which is an awful lot of cashflow tied up.
Once you've taken all that into account you can work out a "real" cost of the goods to the company, and when you compare that to UK manufacture it looks a whole lot better.
we have moved the manufacture of 2 items from China to the UK in the last 9 months and made total cost savings that are worth having, but there are a couple more that we looked at where it didn't have a chance. We will look again in a year or so though.
I would have thought that the UK Government - doing what it can to promote British manufacturing - would have some sort of agency to help guys like me do exactly this. Does anyone know of such an entity that has a specific remit here? I can't be the only one trying to do this and the benefits to the domestic economy are obvious.
I would be inclined to spend a little bit of time researching potential manufacturers here (maybe whatever the equivalent of business link is these days could help with that)
Then show them the product and say could you make this for a tenner?
Let them worry about all the drawings and stuff
Then show them the product and say could you make this for a tenner?
Let them worry about all the drawings and stuff
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