Recently, we received a customer from another city, and at the beginning we communicated directly with the other party’s purchase. There must have been a leak in this communication, resulting in us not having much to talk about when we met. Because there is a big difference between the customer’s needs and our products? Why is this so? On the one hand, procurement doesn’t have a good understanding of what our company needs, and on the other hand, we don’t put too much emphasis on what parts of our expertise are and what we’re not good at. Here I think of a problem, that is, many times the person who asks for materials, he first has to know what he wants, if he can clearly communicate this idea to procurement, then procurement should be able to find what he needs; But if he just came up with a general concept and asked the purchaser to look for it, it was likely that what he found was not what he needed. If you drive back and forth for two or three hours for something that isn’t really needed, it really shouldn’t be. In the past, when making other products, the engineer went directly to the supplier or sample of the material he needed, and when it came to the later production, the purchase could take the original sample or sample supplier information to the thing he needed. This ensures that you are getting the right thing and that you don’t have to waste your time. Including the time of the person who made the request. Because in the current situation of such a developed network, there is time to describe this demand clearly, and it is enough to find similar products on the Internet. Isn’t this better than driving for more than an hour without figuring out the situation and running over to communicate the details?
For example, one of the questions we like to ask customers when we make foam packaging liners is, do you have a packaging design now? Or are there any samples? If you have all of these, it’s as simple as quoting according to the design and order quantity. If not, then we will come up with a sketch according to the customer’s needs to confirm what the customer needs, if the customer himself is not clear about what he wants, then it will be difficult for us to cooperate with the production side.
Figure out the requirements first, and then determine how to solve them. This may be more efficient.

Companies involved in OEM and processing have a very different approach to promotion compared to those in the consumer goods space. For instance, our work with foam packaging differs even more from consumer products. The quality of what we make doesn’t seem to matter much to consumers because they’re buying the product, not the packaging; they just want it to be protected. Looks and craftsmanship don’t really concern them. Only companies that are focused on quality will take the time to design their products and their packaging thoughtfully. As a packaging manufacturer, we can’t really educate consumers directly; instead, we can only advise manufacturers on what kind of packaging design aligns with their product positioning. This creates a natural distinction between B2B and B2C approaches. First, we can’t directly reference our clients’ products, and second, it’s hard to pin down our audience. For example, if we create a video to showcase a product and share it on major social media platforms, the audience remains the product’s consumers (of course, some purchasing managers are also consumers which complicates things further). How to make more people aware of OEM and processing companies is definitely a topic worth exploring.

Production notes: Focusing on quality in manufacturing definitely leads to slower growth compared to just chasing marketing. Sure, it’s said that good products don’t fear being hidden away, but not many can withstand the loneliness. In the competitive market, some have slowly abandoned their original principles; when others drop their prices, they follow suit. However, it’s clear that lowering prices on certain products can’t guarantee their quality, which ends up dragging the quality down with the price. We, who are making foam linings, are experiencing the same thing. Recently, we saw some competitors offering products at prices that, when calculated, wouldn’t even cover the electricity costs for the machines. If their companies still need to operate and make profits, they’ll have to find margins elsewhere. If everyone keeps this up, the entire foam lining industry is going to face a tough situation; we’d witness a classic case of bad money driving out good money. Our insistence on quality isn’t about being market-savvy; it’s simply because we can’t accept low-quality products for ourselves, and we don’t believe that everyone only cares about price and ignores quality. If one day we grow, that will be our reward for sticking to quality; but if we don’t make it one day, it won’t mean the market doesn’t care about quality—it’ll just mean we didn’t work hard enough to reach those who appreciate quality.

If the same machined product can reduce the number of times it gets off the machine, the consistency of product quality will be better, and it can also reduce the loss of manual operation. Every time there is an additional process in the product, there may be subtle differences in the process of changing processes, and the accumulation of these subtle differences will cause greater errors. Therefore, reducing the number of machine off, allowing the machine parts to be processed in as few processes as possible, and allowing the machine parts to be less or not off the machine can better ensure the consistency of the product. The same is to process a special-shaped foam lining, if you need to get off the machine frequently to replace the processing surface, then there will be modeling loss due to operation errors in the middle, and at the same time, there may be different effects between different linings due to multiple placements. Therefore, if we want to improve the quality of the lining, we must start to think before processing, so that a lining can be processed at one time as much as possible, or minimize the number of times it gets on and off the machine.

Recently, I have visited a lot of peers, and many people’s machines have not been turned on much, and everyone said that it may be because of international relations, there is nothing to do, and it can be said that business is getting worse and worse. Of course, because of this, we see that some factories are taking orders at ultra-low prices, how low is the price? We calculated that at his price, it may not even be enough for electricity, and counting the wear and tear of the machine, we have to lose money every time we do it, what is the price of this? First of all, the quality of the product will be reduced, and then the whole market will be messed up, and then it will not be a matter of price, but the people of the overall market will no longer trust the suppliers in this region. We are only doing EVA foam processing now, but once our processing is no longer trusted, the production of peripheral raw materials will definitely suffer significant losses. It will take years or even more than a dozen years to recover. This situation is a bit similar to the previous Zhongshan lighting, which was more famous in the lighting market at the beginning, but some people are “smart”, will save money, and will save materials. Then, when it comes to Zhongshan lighting, everyone will feel that the quality there is not good. Fortunately, this impression has faded in recent years, and Zhongshan’s lighting market has returned to its previous level. However, the lost more than ten years in the middle can never be recovered.

It takes free time to research and develop new production technologies. If an employee is only busy working all day long, then the employee’s skills can only be improved by the ones he is currently doing. Employees will not improve on other seemingly unrelated abilities, or for those who have not yet seen the benefits, on the one hand, many people do not have the need or desire to improve, and on the other hand, employees simply do not have time to learn or think about new things. For example, why is it that the same foam engraving process, the rounded corners we make are excessively smoother and more natural? And many people will have jitter pits? Why is it a vibrating knife to cut, why do some people can cut the curve smoothly, while most people need to polish it manually? It is very obvious that people who do well spend time and cost to research, as for how to achieve good results? Take your time, put your energy.

Encounter problems, solve problems, for the production of many problems are solvable, can not be the problem of time, and the problem of money. The customer has no drawings, only samples, then we will measure the size of the sample to produce the drawings; The customer doesn’t even have a sample? Then we can confirm the drawing and proofing according to the demand… As long as production has not started, the previous changes or uncertainties can be resolved. But if you have to change something after production, it’s more troublesome. Especially for foam linings like ours, which are formed in one piece. Can be processed at one time, it is best not to do separately, the position and size is difficult to be consistent.

For many EVA packaging manufacturers, the biggest costs are mainly two, one is the cost of labor, and the other is the material. There is not much that can be changed about labor costs. Either improve efficiency or reduce wages. It is easy to say that improving efficiency, but in actual operation, it involves upgrading equipment, strengthening management, etc., which increases costs from another aspect. Back to another point, that is, materials. Although the appearance looks the same, there are definitely differences in actual things. This does not mean that a certain material is not good. In fact, we have to look at the final use positioning. For example, materials can be divided into three types: A, B, and C, among which A is the best, B is the second best, and C is generally used as auxiliary materials. And here, each item can be further subdivided, such as A+, A-, etc. So when we ask for a lower price, we should first consider the purpose of the product, and then determine which material to use. The price of industrial products is not like that of handicrafts, and the price is not deceptive.

As Xiaomi does, it provides superior quality to its peers, while at the same time demanding lower prices than its peers who provide the same quality, and it has enough profits to improve quality and service, and then it produces a positive cycle of conscience. I think the product should be like this, to provide good quality and service, at the same time, to provide the market with competitive prices, the overall look cheap also have good goods. Only in this way can the industry achieve good development.