Market Selection
Whether you are developing a brand new product, entering a new market with an established technology, or moving locations from one market to another, important considerations must be made in order to streamline costs, production volumes, sales and overall time to market — which all translate into a happy end user.
Different regions of the world hold specific raw materials for producing certain products and are known for specific duties based on their markets. Since we produce electrical wire parts in the electronics industries, we will look at how electronic products and new technologies are affected.
Asian based countries tend to hold the majority of minerals and mining capabilities for the fine metals used in electronics manufacturing including tin, brass, copper, gold. Not only do they hold the physical ores, but they also process them directly for industry where they are produced. Over time, this fact has created industry hot spots where sub-processed materials are produced in certain places and shipped to other hotposts be finished. From raw mineral to final product, there are a few key stops or “Hot Spots” that govern the entire industry.
- Raw Materials: For the majority of products, Asian countries produce the raw copper for wire strand creation, fine plating’s and metal terminals for connections, housings and other plastic/malleable molded parts used to finish electrical products like looms, electrical tapes, zip ties etc.
- Distribution of Components: After creation, the next governing layer is the distribution and acquisition of component products to build into an electrical final product. These companies are tethered to a top entity called a Master distributor. Every other distribution entity locally purchases their stock through the master. This hierarchy can become a nuisance depending on the type of product you are producing. Distribution networks aim to supply every component to every market, but as we now know as a result of the pandemic and markets “closing their borders” to outside markets, this is not the case. You need to source the type of components that will be in stock often in the locations you need them.
- Certified Mid-Stream Manufacturers: Manufacturers are an important step to consider in the stream as they are the ones with relationships to the distributors. See, anybody can purchase a certified component online, but in order to certify a finished product for mass production, the parts must be visible throughout the entire manufacturing process so certification services like CSA and UL and CE can determine that in fact registered parts were used. Selecting a manufacturer with great supplier relationships is paramount. Prices, final product availability once manufactured, longevity of a product line by continuance of supply are all affected by your mid-stream manufacturer selection. That’s US for your certified wire harnessing needs
- Final Product/Brand producer: This is usually YOU! You take the plastics, the digital, the wire products, the metal forms, the branded plaques and assemble the final product, send it to your retailers and hold the finished goods to be sold. Where you choose to house this final location means everything to your success
As a smart researcher, it is your job to align these aspects when entering a product market as a brand. It takes a village!
Mid-Stream Electronics Manufacturer Selection
There are many wire component and harness manufacturers around the world who all do a decent job at producing wire harnesses and lead components for products that do not plug into the wall, but very few who fit the “Mid-stream Certified Manufacturer” role holding viable up-to-date 3rd party certifications with CSA and/or UL allowing them to produce certified power products for another manufacturer with guarantees.
Large or Small Company? Scaleable?
There are two defined organization types who tend to service specific areas of the electronics industries and a third lesser type. Let’s have a look at how they differ:
- Large Companies: These are the giants of the industry including names like Furukawa Electric Co, Nexans, Schleuniger, Amphenol — many of them producers of raw materials that they also finish.
These companies are known for producing extremely high volumes of the same thing for a company long term housing full engineering teams for application and design, they have great relationships with distribution networks and can bring a product to market quickly. This style of producer works well for large scale companies who already have a design nailed down and just want to make it. These types of companies struggle in the lower volume and custom markets as they become expensive due to organization size and financial requirement.
2. Small Companies: These are the rest of the certified producer much like C-T Wire Prep Inc. who service end brand producers the same way as the large scale manufacturers but with the ability to offer small product runs, many revisions, re-designs, and other applications where mass production is not the answer. There are very few of these manufacturers who can support a product lifecycle as it grows to the need levels of a large manufacturer so often times products start out at a smaller certified company, and grow into needing a large company’s abilities.
3. ** Scalable Small Companies ** – the secret weapon
C-T Wire Prep Inc. Positions itself as a smaller company in the sense of doing business, but with the factory space, engineering expertise and vast certified tooling capabilities to service high volume needs. We believe it creates the best of both worlds where a newer product at low volume can be designed, manufacturing processes created to automate its production in its infancy at low volumes, and then once realized in the market, ramp production up to volumes seen by large companies if needed. We find the right price point for your required volumes without disrupting the components acquisition process or uprooting an established production line. We have seen through the entire lifespans of many products and supported their harness needs until the end.
Often, custom jigs & fixtures and other on-the-line custom tools are created in our fabrication shops to assist personnel in electronics assembly based on designs by our engineering team. These are hard to re-create should a product move production location or company facility. Selecting
Manufacturer Age, Maturity & Staying Power
Choosing a long term supplier for your electrical wire products that go into your final product is a massive undertaking. Many organizational features need auditing during the process to ensure you get the quality, price and relationship you desire.
the following areas are important:
- Manufacturer Age: The age of a certified company says a ton about their ability to be around 20 years from now to keep producing your product the same way they can today. Remember that every certified CSA and UL company undergoes quarterly surprise inspections to maintain their subscriptions to certify their products.
- Manufacturer Maturity: This feature goes hand in hand with Age. A mature manufacturer has been around the industry for decent time, and understands the metrics that make the industry tick. This means they understand there are standard tooled product lines used in the industry such as AMP, MOLEX, JST, AMPHENOL, PHOENIX CONTACT etc… but not only do they know the names but also the standard terminals and connection systems that are used. See, all manufacturers make a ton of custom application parts that become available to the market for a specific company, but are not the ones used standardly in power products across the industry. They may even have the same sizing’s but different plating’s etc. than standard ones so they look the same. Newer less mature companies and engineers designing products may not know to stick to these standard parts in their designs and assign custom parts that are rarely tooled by most companies. Finding a manufacturer who can direct your path in this area can save thousands of dollars in custom tooling and headaches in sourcing parts by showing you the standard series to use in place of custom choices.
- Staying Power: This aspect can pertain to a large or small company. The ability to be adaptable can cripple even the largest businesses with vast financial reserves depending on structure. Imagine a large wire harness producer in the automotive industry. They set up an intensive assembly line making a specific harness for a specific car. They ramp that to 20 lines wide. The car design then changes to a new part, requiring all 20 lines to change out that one component and machine. Company incurs 10 million dollars in machine acquisition costs driving the final harness prices higher. Now assume this same scenario in a smaller company structured for custom applications. All machines are tooled with changeable dies for many product lines. Wire machines use one-blade systems that can be changed very quickly to produce a different wire size/type. We set up a line to run that car harness. Should we require ramping, our machines are built to produce at the speeds of a large facility, but with customizability at any point.
Prices will be slightly higher at smaller companies during onboarding due to smaller overall volumes from distribution, but as the product matures and ramps, cost savings can become realized as higher volumes are acquired. The importance is that you find a company who can support you throughout the entire process.
Business Structure
Support
The ability to receive personalized support at a manufacturing company for engineers, office staff and other relations changes depending on the type of company you select to do business with. Larger corporations tend to have more staff available to help in many areas, but trained by standardized paper methods who reference a manual to answer your questions.
In contrast, often when working with smaller corporations in the custom fields, you end up chatting directly with an engineer or someone knowledgeable in advanced ideas pertaining to the industry. The quality of answers to questions changes.
Longevity
It is interesting to compare the way a large corporation handles the lifespan of a product compared to some smaller entities. At large corporations, you see the purchasing process happen in bulk, often with an intermediary warehousing solution in place to buffer line needs. This means a ton of stock to produce with — Just – In – Time (JIT). A great setup for a product that runs everyday, 24 hrs a day at high volume with few rev. changes over its lifespan. This also means on the contrary, a large capital investment on the front end. Due to this, the constraints for editability of a product or soft ramping products for review in markets is thin because of the costs associated with bulk purchasing.
Smaller entities on the other hand, often order just for a specific job, meaning that they do not incur such high capital investments, allowing for smaller batching, test runs, edits, etc. The key for working with custom smaller producers is achieving a state where you can buy in volume but build in batches. It takes a concerted effort between customer and supplier to dictate stock purchases and blanket ordering systems to secure high levels of stock at great prices, but use them carefully over time in case of changes.
If you have products that may intend to have many models, variations and features, working with a custom corporation may afford a much easier relationship over time if they can ramp to high volumes with you.
We hope this article has served as a useful tool in finding certified parts and may steer you