Product manufacture in England! :)

[Kibi]

I had such fun today.
The company that I work for is getting a bespoke product manufactured by a company in England.
The manufacturing company has completed the product and invited us down to thier premisis to test the product. They then fed us lunch followed by a tour of their facility.
They fab. everything except the boards in house. They design the product, the boards and the enclosures in house and just send the gerbers off to a PCB fab. house down the road. They load and solder the boards in house and then perform through hole soldering by hand.
The tour also included a visit to their component stores and the CNC shop where they manufacture the enclosures which includes screen printing of the enclosures.
Each product is then tested by hand with a bespoke, in house designed test device to ensure quality.
It is very refreshing to see a quality product being designed and manufactured right here in England. We don't have to send off to China to get stuff made.
 

[IanB]

Sounds fun! I presume this is a small quantity custom design? Hand soldering sounds very labour intensive for larger quantities of product. In the old days there were wave solder machines...I wonder if any are still around?

I used to work for a company where we purchased control panels with custom switch and indicator layouts and custom circuits inside them. In those days too we were able to find a local fabricator who could design and manufacture the whole thing. There will always be a market (I hope) for bespoke products like this.

[Fraser]

Hi,

Nice post and I totally agree with supporting British Industry in these hard times. I even buy my groceries locally whenever possible to support local businesses, BUT we can't avoid one awful truth.....

British labour and expertise is good but comes at a price. Our wages are normally decent and appropriate for the skill set in our industries, but China can massively undercut the labour and materials costs. A sore subject but I believe Dyson ended up off shoring work to maintain profit margins and economies of production.

I would never say Chinese production is better or preferable to UK sourced production but it does make sense when the bean counters look at the business model.

A little story for you....some years ago I saw an interview with a Fidelity manager who was discussing the production of a little TV set. He stated that just the TV picture tube cost him GBP12 after import duty as it was an electronic part. He stated that the Korean imported complete TV sets hit the UK market with no import duties as it was a finished product and only cost GBP14 wholesale. His point was that he could not compete with the imports because the cost of production in the UK was just too high and even HMRC were against him doing so ! This story dates back to the 1980's so bear this in mind regarding the figures etc. Things may now have changed but I think the underlying problem is still valid.

[IanB]

Nowadays I believe the opposite is true. Finished products are subject to import duty, but electronic parts are not (got to check with HMRC to confirm this). This would sort of make sense, as it would favour local manufacture over imported goods.

Keep in mind that bulk production is different from bespoke manufacture. If you outsource production to China, I understand you will pretty much have to go and live in China and supervise your baby while they tool up for production or nothing that comes off the production line will work. (They will substitute parts, redesign things for "simplicity", remove "unnecessary" features, and so on.) For small runs, this is going to eat into any cost savings you think you might make.

[Fraser]

Hi IanB,

I am very please to read that all is not as dismal as I had feared.

I have seen bespoke production facilities for some specialist items and the price is often not the issue, provided the product meets the spec and timelines.

Many thanks for the insight.

[Neilm]

In the old days there were wave solder machines...I wonder if any are still around?

We still use them where I work.

Neil

[Kibi]

They actually use Vapour Phase Soldering for the SMT components. The director said that the cost of wave soldering for the through hole components could not be justified against the cost of paying native workers to do it by hand. I asked if this was by design, and he said yes, he designes for as little through hole as possible to make it cost effective.

[Zero999]

Hi,

Nice post and I totally agree with supporting British Industry in these hard times. I even buy my groceries locally whenever possible to support local businesses, BUT we can't avoid one awful truth.....

It pisses me off more when I see blackberries from Holland, a country with similar climate and labour charges to ours. It's silly buying blackberries from a shop in the UK in August anyway as there are loads ripe for the picking in the hedgerow round the back of the store! It be so bad f the blackberries sold in the store were reasonably priced and tasted better but they're a rip off and not so good as they were picked a few days ago and flown over here.

Anyway, back on topic: the original poster is located in Zimbabwe, which used to be part of the British empire so maybe they have more agreeable trading terms with us than China?

[Kibi]

Hi,

Nice post and I totally agree with supporting British Industry in these hard times. I even buy my groceries locally whenever possible to support local businesses, BUT we can't avoid one awful truth.....

It pisses me off more when I see blackberries from Holland, a country with similar climate and labour charges to ours. It's silly buying blackberries from a shop in the UK in August anyway as there are loads ripe for the picking in the hedgerow round the back of the store! It be so bad f the blackberries sold in the store were reasonably priced and tasted better but they're a rip off and not so good as they were picked a few days ago and flown over here.

Anyway, back on topic: the original poster is located in Zimbabwe, which used to be part of the British empire so maybe they have more agreeable trading terms with us than China?

Nicely spotted, the original poster is currently located in England, South Manchester to be precise, but was born in and originates from Zimbabwe. There is a lot of oil in Zimbabwe, but currently the price is too high to extract it, so no trading at this moment in time I'm afraid.
We did "used to be" part of the British empire, but we have to rewind the tape about 30 years. I am very proud of my upbringing, which is reflected in my profile.

Anyway, back on topic, I live in England now and I feel very refreshed that there are still a lot of very smart people around who are exercising their talents, designing and producing good quality products on their own soil.

[mikeselectricstuff]

There are still plenty of contract manufacturers in the UK, although they tend to specialise in lower volumes than a few years ago. For designs that are all SMD, the costs of Far-East or other overseas manufacture aren't huge - it's hand-work where the differences become significant.
My subcontractor does wave-soldering routinely. A few manufacturers may have droppped it if their machines couldn't do lead-free  and didn't feel it was worth the investment to upgrade.

[Zad]

UK based board population has the additional benefit that you won't see your product appear from a no-name place in China in 6 months time in your competitors product too.

[Bored@Work]

UK based board population has the additional benefit that you won't see your product appear from a no-name place in China in 6 months time in your competitors product too.

Unless you or your manufacturer happened to have a very interested Chinese intern around. The hard-working,  painstakingly taking notes kind of type.

That happened to several companies around here. There was a sudden inrush of Chinese interns, because they were so much more interested and willing to work, compared to the local youth. A few month later several companies had to find out that their products were copied in China.

[Zero999]

That happened to several companies around here. There was a sudden inrush of Chinese interns, because they were so much more interested and willing to work, compared to the local youth. A few month later several companies had to find out that their products were copied in China.

And sold for a fraction of the price.

Nicely spotted, the original poster is currently located in England, South Manchester to be precise, but was born in and originates from Zimbabwe.

It's good you're proud of your heritage but I think the purpose of your profile is for you to put your current location which might make it easier for others to help as they'll know things such as  voltage and frequency of the mains and what suppliers are in your area.

[saturation]

There is a great UK product designed and built in the UK called ArchAngel which automates digital restoration.   

http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2010/6/7/world-at-war-documentary-gets-hd-restoration.html

http://www.snellgroup.com/news-and-events/press-releases/695/snell-archangel-ph.c-hd-wins-birtv-2010-award-for-outstanding-product

http://www.snellgroup.com/company/about-us/

[Kibi]

It's good you're proud of your heritage but I think the purpose of your profile is for you to put your current location which might make it easier for others to help as they'll know things such as  voltage and frequency of the mains and what suppliers are in your area.

Mmm OK. Point taken. It's just as well then that Zimbabwe also operates on 240v (when the grid is up and there is enough energy to generate electricity). Any self respecting Zimbabwean should expect at least 30 hours of electricity supply from the grid per week, the rest of it is supplied by the Honda at the back of the garage, (fuel shortages notwithstanding). They even use the same square pin fused plug that we do in England.

[Zero999]

What suppliers do you have in Zimbabwe? Is it the same as the UK? Can you pop down Maplins, if you're run out of something you need now?

[Kibi]

What suppliers do you have in Zimbabwe? Is it the same as the UK? Can you pop down Maplins, if you're run out of something you need now?

Until the early 90's it was really bad. There were a few electrical shops that sold 741's and 555 timers, but that was about it. Anything fancy like a CMOS or TTL logic IC had to be scavenged from old boards or wait until relatives came over from abroad. I had loads of old boards in my lab when I was a kid and got very good at de-soldering.
In the early 90's a proper electronics component supplier opened. He stocked what seemed like everything. He had resistors, capacitors, loads of discreet semiconductors and all sorts of IC's. You could buy everything you needed to etch your own PCB's which was a quantum leap! He even had tools for electronics, soldering irons, proper solder and test gear. He didn't sell gadgets like Maplin do, just components. If there was something he didn't have, he'd be able to get it in for you. His shop was always very busy, within a year of opening, he had to move to bigger premises. It was a dream come true and the prices were very reasonable.
When I left Zim, a few other independent suppliers had sprung up, but I havn't been back there for almost 8 years, so I don't know what the status is now. The severe state of the economy would affect electronics suppliers like that in one of two ways. 1) They could thrive even better as more people get things repaired rather than buy new ones or 2) the severe rises in import duty and extreme devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar would put them out of business. I hope they didn't go out of business and things are much better now that Zimbabwe has adopted the $US.

[logictom]

There was a series on the BBC a few weeks ago, Made in Britain with Evan Davis. I watched it because they visit Arm in the second episode, was pretty good

[Zero999]

Yes, I saw that too. I do think we're in for a fal over the next decade or so as China will start to be able to out compete us on everything, including design and quality manufacturing.