In April, we spent most of our time proofing, half of the machines were proofing, and the real production time may be half a month. Two or three days after returning from the holiday in May, I have been arranging samples. As a result, in the past two days, a bunch of materials suddenly came, and the entire material workshop was almost full. There may be several more samples to be confirmed, and then the materials will come. Last month has been very busy, but basically they are busy writing programs and adjusting machines, and May should be very fast, but this time it is busy with mass production, in this case, the machine will be busy, but the personnel will have some time to rest. In particular, there are several large products that are available for hours on board, during which employees can take a break and take care of other things. Many times when we quote the proofing price to others, some people will ask, why is the price so far away from the big goods? It is because the cost of adjusting the machine is relatively high, and the machine occupies the machine and personnel, and the machine is idle. Of course, the account can’t be said to be the same, after all, customers often need to proofing first to know whether the design is suitable and how to adjust it later. However, if it is calculated according to normal, our proofing is actually a loss, but the business account cannot be simply calculated according to the profit or loss. We first have to find things to do, and then serve customers well, customers have the need for lining and proofing, then we have to provide customers with high-quality products in accordance with drawings and quality standards. For the requirements of lining quality, whether it is busy or idle, whether it is a sample or a large cargo, whether it is a large customer or a small customer… This cannot be changed or relaxed. Some time ago, I did understand and learn a lot from communicating with my peers. For example, how to deal with the abnormal product quality caused by logistics and transportation problems == First of all, we must first solve the problem that there is no packaging available for the customer, immediately re-order the material to arrange production, and deliver the foam packaging safely to the customer; Only after this problem is solved, the next step is to communicate with logistics how to deal with the damage to the product. This is the problem of doing things, first solve the customer’s problem, and then deal with their own problems, in the whole product, this part of the packaging only accounts for a small part, can not delay the production and packaging of large goods because of our small part. If this kind of problem happens, the customer’s loss will be many times greater than ours, or even unpredictable. For example, if the customer’s production of the foam tray we make for the customer’s lithium battery production turnover cannot be carried out normally because of our problems, then not only the battery, but also the production of the car will also be affected, and if it is just in time for the press conference and the launch, the impact will be even more immeasurable. Therefore, the principle of quality first and customer first is a very important and important principle to adhere to for our underlying processing and production enterprises.

What’s the point of making the packaging liner look so nice if it’s just going to be thrown away after unboxing? Initially, packaging served only as protective gear for the product, but it gradually evolved into a showcase for the brand and an expression of product style. Nowadays, protecting the product is a basic requirement, and more people are focusing on whether the packaging looks good, whether the design is eye-catching, and whether there’s a sense of ceremony during unboxing… Meanwhile, people are slowly becoming less concerned about the actual product protection. As long as it can adequately protect the product, whether it looks good on the inside is not important; consumers will still toss the packaging after they buy the product. This is indeed a very real issue. Foam packaging was originally designed as filler to protect the product. Unlike the external colorful boxes or cartons, if the colorful box is beautifully made, many people enjoy collecting them as decor or for storing things. But is it possible that the reason people throw away foam is that it doesn’t look good and serves no purpose? What if we designed the foam, which initially served only as protection, to look great from the start, so that beyond protecting the product well, it also has a new mission after unpacking? Wouldn’t that help avoid ending up in the trash and better protect the environment? If we create an outstanding product with beautiful packaging, shouldn’t we also unify the appearance by making the protective foam liner more appealing? A nicer liner would better showcase the product to customers while enhancing the brand’s tone. Therefore, thinking that it’s pointless to make the packaging liner look good is a mistaken belief.

We image ourselves as a foam packaging processing company, but we know that we actually do more about other foam products, such as fixtures on automatic production lines, turnover trays for production in technology companies’ factories, protective devices for sports, yoga auxiliary products, ship transfer mats and other special-shaped foam products, rather than packaging itself. Many times, we are also thinking to ourselves, we are obviously a packaging products company, why are there not many products that actually do packaging? This should involve factors such as quality and price. Many customers who need packaging for their products, the first thing they think of is the color box factory and the carton factory, and then they will directly give the packaging needs to the color box or carton supplier, and then the color box or carton supplier will help them make the lining. Based on the consideration of cost and benefit maximization, unless the customer specifies the requirements, the first choice of the color box factory may be some packaging linings with relatively low cost of pearl cotton. For customers, the outside of the packaging looks good, and the lining that plays a protective role on the inside can be met as long as it can be functionally satisfied. Many customers who actually use packaging do not know that there is an option of EVA foam, nor do they know what kind of effect EVA foam can achieve, so it is impossible to choose to use EVA foam to carve the inner lining. For other foam products, the customer actually found us at the first time, on the contrary, many people think that this plastic-like product should be injection molded out of a mold because of their thinking habits. When they asked around the market and found that the amount of injection molding requirements would be relatively large, and the cost of molds would be very high, they would slowly learn that they could also process foam into what they actually needed through engraving. Of course, we can’t blame the customer on this issue, it is very normal for the customer not to understand or not know a thing, and we ourselves have a lot of things that we do not understand and do not know. It’s just that because our size is very small, it’s not enough for more people to understand this production method, and it’s not enough for more people to understand us. Another is that even if many peers have been in this industry for many years, they have very little external publicity, because they often do the business of regular customers and do not need to spend a lot of effort to publicize and promote. So the result is that everyone who knows knows it, and those who don’t know always think that EVA is stamping and then sticking several layers. Another is that there are too few of this type of information, sometimes we can’t find this kind of information on the Internet, and people who engage in technology are generally not very good at expression, or there are some people who can still talk about it, but there are not many that can be organized into text or voice content. We need to work harder!

Recently, we went to a colleague’s place to hear them share their experiences, and I learned a lot of different knowledge. I especially realized why the industry is like this now, why some foam processing factories can quote prices cheaper than our electricity costs, and why some customers have very low quality requirements while our own customers are extremely demanding… When I’m not that busy, I should go out more, see how others are doing things, check on their quality and how they manage it. Sometimes if you understand more about the situation, it helps you position yourself better, figure out what kind of business suits you, and where your advantages are compared to them… Once you have an accurate positioning, you can have a clear direction, and that’s how you can go further. We’re all in foam, so what are the advantages in their processes? Are they focusing on packaging or gaps in foam? Are their methods suitable for us? What can we adapt for ourselves? Can we do it like they do? How we answer these questions will determine our path going forward, whether we stick to the quality route, and so on.

There are always a lot of skills in the arrangement of production, and there are several orders at the same time, although they are all foam linings, but there are skills in which one to do first and which one to do next; It’s not that whichever customer is in a hurry will go first; For example, the size of the similar should be arranged on the same machine as much as possible, so that you can save a lot of time to adjust the machine tool in the middle, and the time is very large, and the time is very long, try to arrange it when you are about to get off work, so that people can rest, you can let the machine continue to do it, and when the rest comes back, you can see that the product is almost ready. A lot of things that seem redundant and unnecessary are actually saving a lot of hidden costs, and at the same time, they can also improve the efficiency of production. This is one of the reasons why there are so many factories that do EVA foam processing now, and we have always insisted on quality and not fighting a price war. Our improvement in efficiency and quality can well compensate for the emergence of more and more competitors in the market, and as long as we have always insisted on quality first, while constantly improving our efficiency, so that we can survive well in the EVA lining packaging market. Those manufacturers who blindly use the price to grab customers will one day find that there are lower prices than them, do they follow or not? Follow means no money to make or even lose, if you don’t follow, then there will be no order; Both are dead ends. It’s just a matter of being a little earlier or a little later. Or some people will say that when they find that the price can’t keep up, they can also start with quality and efficiency. It’s too late, and I’m used to doing simple and easy work, and I can’t turn it around for a while to do fine work; Moreover, it is possible to optimize their own technology and equipment well, and use personnel and equipment who are used to doing rough work to do fine work? The saying that you get what you pay for is a summary of the experience of our ancestors for thousands of years, so when you buy a bad product, look back and think about it, is there a good quality product on the market? Where is it? How do I find it? Why can’t I buy it myself? Ask yourself, am I willing to pay a higher price for quality? If you do, then shop around and I’m sure you’ll be interested in finding a quality product. Back to production, when the fixed cost is constant, the difference between good quality and bad quality is in the variable cost, maybe it is labor (good masters have high salaries), or equipment (good equipment is also relatively expensive) or other technologies that we don’t know (this is even more priceless), so how do we choose?

There are more and more peers, and more and more factories buy equipment, will this have an impact on our own work and sales? The impact will definitely be there, and in the case of a certain market size, there are more people who provide products. Then the cake that each person can get will be smaller. But because of this, do we have to adjust the way we do things? For example, in order to get orders and improve the delivery speed, but at the cost of reducing the quality of the product? This shows that it is not good, although the foam industry is almost also used for packaging, and better is also used for packaging. But if everyone provides poor quality EVA foam products, it will form a situation where bad money drives out good money over time, and then the entire market will be damaged, including the sellers. Insist that he beat him, I beat mine, do my own thing, and stick to my duty. In this way, we can better survive.

When it comes to production and operation, then we can’t do without the word advantage. With all economic activities, only with advantages can we survive in market competition, and only with relative advantages can we better survive among many peers. And what is our comparative advantage? It can quickly mass produce and process various special-shaped foam products, and the processing accuracy can also be controlled at 0.2~0.5mm for special products; For foam products, this is quite a high demand. Now the problem is how to let more people know about us, so that customers who have such needs know that there is still this option. Or some people will say that if the machining accuracy is high, the cost is also high, and there is no competitive advantage for many ordinary customers. This is true, fortunately, our conventional processing can be done in the same way as other similar manufacturers, and our quality integrity and consistency are also better. This can be considered as a comparative advantage over other peers in conventional products.

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.