Made in China - Getting Our Product Manufactured in China

Having our pump manufactured in China was anassembled, and each motor is tested before being
interesting, and rewarding, experience.assembled to the pump head. After everything is
We had determined that we could not make aassembled the pump is hooked up to water lines
profit with our product without finding a way toand tested again.
manufacture it for substantially less money than itOne of the problems we encountered at first was
was costing us at the time. My partner who doesdifficulty with translations and things like being able
the marketing had met a gentleman (Jerry) whoto view drawings and get files to open.
was having several products made in China andThe Chinese manufacturer is just as concerned
selling them through U.S. and Canadian companies.as we are with quality control. He wants lots of
John was familiar with our product and believed itorders and he knows they won't come if we
could really be a big seller if we could get it offhave quality control issues with the product.
the ground. Jerry had an associate, Sue, a ChineseEven with all that testing, the real test begins in
woman who lives in Shanghai and works with himthe field. We got about 30 percent of the pumps
doing translating and acting as a go between forback from that first batch. There were a number
several small factories.of problems that showed up. Not enough testing
Our product, a small pump that installs under sinksapparently. We had to beef up some of the
to bring hot water fast to the fixture withoutinjection molded parts, make some small changes
running water down the drain, would require ato the mold tooling, and do a much better job of
motor, an injection molded pump, an electronictesting. The same thing happened with the
circuit board, and the case. Since we had to havefollowing two small batches of 250 pumps, and
new tooling made we wanted to make somewe had finally reached the point where were
improvements and changes to the pump at theconfident enough to put in our first big order...well
same time.to us it was big...of 1,000 pumps.
Our old pump was a gear pump and made a lotIn the meantime we were having all kinds of
of noise. We sent our old pump, a small centrifugalproblems with ETL labs in Shanghai. The factory
pump similar to what we wanted to switch to,kept having difficulties with the ETL engineers, so
and a set of drawings of what we wanted to endthey would ask me to intervene, and I would then
up with. We also sent a schematic, circuit boardget into an email exchange with an engineer at
layout, and even a fully functional sample circuitETL labs in Shanghai. It seemed to me like they
board.didn't really understand what they were doing. For
After about 30 to 60 days, I don't rememberinstance, at one point they told us that the 2.5
exactly, we received the first set of prototypes.amp fuse we were using was too small and we
There were a host of problems with the parts,needed to put a 4 amp fuse in. Excuse me...that is
and we sent back instructions how to bring thecrazy, the fuse would never blow!
parts up to par.It took about half a dozen emails and some data
For some reason the Chinese had made changessheets from the manufacturer to convince ETL
to the circuit board even though we sent them aShanghai to let us use a smaller fuse. There were
functional working sample. Part of ourseveral more strange requests from the Chinese
arrangement with the Chinese manufacturer calledETL engineers, but we finally got everything
for the product to be listed with ETL labs asresolved and obtained our ETL listing. It seemed
complying with the UL standards for motorto me that most of the problems were probably
operated pumps. I could see that some of thedue to translation problems with the UL Standards
spacings on the circuit board were too closedocuments.
together to be approved. After a couple moreNow things are proceeding quite smoothly. We
changes we got the circuit board problemswere fortunate to stumble onto a very good
straightened out.situation. Jerry travels to China frequently and Sue
Pretty much the same held true for the pump,is a very good translator and has a good
motor, and case. They all had initial problems, butrelationship with the manufacturer that we are
after several tries the factory got it right, and wedealing with. The manufacturer recognizes the
place our first order, a sample size of 250 pumps.importance of producing a superior product, and
My partner headed off to China for the first runhas bent over backward to comply with all of our
of 500 pumps, and it was a very good thing hewishes.
did. It took about 2 weeks, but they finally gotIf you can find good people to deal with and good
those first 250 pumps assembled and tested. Wetranslation, and if you are willing to travel to China
placed great emphasis on testing. The circuita few times, it can be quite worthwhile.
boards are functionally tested before the pump is