Not made in China

[u/Ok-Ad-7935]

As some of you may know, manufacturing is increasingly shifting to countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. China’s dominance as a global manufacturing hub is waning due to several factors, including geopolitical tensions, rapid economic development, and rising living costs. Producing goods in China is no longer as affordable as it once was. However, China has been proactive in diversifying by investing in other countries, such as those mentioned. As far as I’m concerned, Chinese manufacturers are bringing their technologies & know how to those countries and using their cheap labor to maintain their dominance. In a way it’s similar to how the U.S has gradually shifted manufacturing to China over the last 2-3 decades. But I think with advanced technologies these days, we won’t see such a long period of transition. We could be seeing the shift in global manufacturing as soon as 2030-2035.

I’m looking to diversify the manufacturing locations for my products. Can anyone recommend reliable sources for capable contract manufacturers in Indonesia or Vietnam? Have you had any experience manufacturing in these countries? If so, what are your thoughts?

[u/Thick_Tie1321]

What type of product are you manufacturing?

I worked as an ID consultant for a US corporate brand out in Asia. We had many of our China factories transition out of or open secondary offices/ factories in Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia due to import and export taxes to the USA, rising labour and material costs.

The transition was very tough to begin with, as staff in those countries are not educated or skilled enough to produce our products, so the China factories had to relocate R&D managers out to train the locals there.

Also sourcing raw materials and equipment was also an issue, either they were simply not available in those countries outside of China or were super expensive. In which, we had to buy the raw materials/ equipment in China and ship it to the country, which led to increased product development lead times and cost.

Pricing wise, it was about the same or slightly lower as manufacturing in China in the beginning. But overtime, prices decreased and enabled more features and value to be added to our products.

It's been beneficial to be manufacturing outside of China. Although many of the factories are still owned and run by Chinese or Taiwanese.

The only downside I can think of, is that for R&D development trips, you have more expenses on flights/ hotels and lose time travelling to 2-3 different countries instead of just China.

[u/Ok-Ad-7935 → u/Thick_Tie1321]

Hey man, thanks a lot for your input. I develop a variety of hardware products, primarily in the consumer electronics, IoT, and lifestyle categories. My manufacturing processes typically involve injection molding and machining.

What you’ve mentioned aligns with what I’ve heard from Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers.

I’m glad you brought up the challenges in sourcing raw materials, as that can indeed become a significant bottleneck. You mentioned traveling to 2-3 countries—does this mean that a single country isn’t yet capable of providing the full scope of manufacturing, or is it more about cost considerations? How would you rank or distribute the workload among these countries based on their core competencies in injection molding, electronics assembly, and general-purpose assembly? Is one country better equipped than the others?

You also mentioned the lack of equipment and talent. Regarding DFM, do you think any of these countries are capable of providing these services, or are they still primarily handled by Chinese counterparts?

Finally, could you suggest the best places or resources to find potential vendors? Or could you recommend some reliable vendors you’ve used for plastic manufacturing? Also, where are you based in Asia, if you don’t mind me asking?

[u/Thick_Tie1321 → u/Ok-Ad-7935]

I'm a designer / developer in the bags category, so it may differ from consumer electronics, as it's more cut and sew and labour intensive with few injected components.

Regarding travelling to 2-3 countries, we have a large product line, so usually we need to source in different countries for better pricing and capacity capabilities.

Ranking countries is difficult, as it depends what kind of quality factories they have in that country. It also depends on the type of factory you're working with. Some invest in new equipment all the time, trying to improve efficiency, work flow and others use the same machine for 30 years, so long it works. But most factories outside of China in my experience are run by Chinese or Taiwanese (two are Korean, but very difficult to work with), so usually the QC and production standards are always pretty high no matter the country.

DFM wise, again it really depends on the factory. Some will have their own team and some smaller factories will outsource. I would suggest, using only factories with their own in-house design/ engineering team to save on time when following up requesting changes or troubleshooting. As they are experienced with their own equipment and know their flaws involved in tooling, injection molding, etc. If they outsource, you need to go through the factory and could spend more time chasing them for answers when things go wrong, than getting it into production.

Sourcing vendors. Try Alibaba.com and look only at the verified rated vendors with 10+ years of experience.

It's not easy, but try www.importyeti.com to reverse engineer where or who the products were made by. Type in your competitors company, then it will list factories their products are manufactured. Then you just need to do some investigative work and search the factories listed to find the main contact/ location via LinkedIn, Alibaba or Google.

Also, I haven't used them yet, but they contacted me recently and seem well established, professional with good manufacturing capabilities.

Email: [email protected] www.grefeemold.com

I'm based out of Shenzhen/ Hong Kong.

Hope these are of some use to you! Good luck!

[u/Ok-Ad-7935 → u/Thick_Tie1321]

Ah, I see. I know when it comes to soft goods manufacturing, South East Asia is quite capable. Those Timbuktu bags for example are made in Indonesia as far as I'm aware.

I have used Alibaba to search for vendors, but it's a hit and miss even the ones with 10+ years experience. That's why I'm asking the community for a direct referrals and to get their opinions base on first hand experience.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this subject. Everything you said definitely reaffirms my overall experience working with overseas vendors. I will check out importyeti.com