Contract manufacturer warns on China

SIC – a long-established UK manufacturer of wiring harnesses and electrical sub-assemblies for the automotive, engineering, electronics and leisure/entertainment industries – said US toy maker Mattel’s recall of over 10 million children’s toys last year demonstrated how precarious it could be to outsource production without ensuring sufficient standards and quality controls were in place. SIC technical director, Phil Hurlow said: “Historically, many UK manufacturing businesses have regarded outsourcing as a ‘last minute’ decision and as such haven’t given enough consideration to the strategic business outcomes and efficiency savings they’d like to achieve from a manufacturing partnership. Invoice cost is all too often the one and only benchmark, and using this as a barometer instead of the total acquisition cost really doesn’t indicate best value.” The Swansea-based company formerly known as Swansea Industrial Components said wage costs in the far-east were also now rising. Combined with the complexities of long-distance relationships becoming a distraction to many, SIC claimed businesses were now beginning to see real benefits in returning their contract manufacturing work to the UK. Highlighting SIC’s claim to being now one of the most comprehensive contract manufacturing and assembly services in the UK, following an expansion into non-electrical design and manufacture, Hurlow said: “Of course, in today’s climate this includes low cost manufacture, but because we have our own partnerships in China and Egypt, we’re able to offer our clients the efficiency savings of offshore manufacture, but in an environment that’s well managed and relatively risk free for the client. So, if one of our clients has a stock issue or engineering change, they’re not restricted to an offshore lead time as we can troubleshoot from our base here in the UK.” Hurlow went on: “Domestic contract manufacturing can deliver huge advantages – especially to small businesses or start-ups which do not have the capital to invest in their own manufacturing plant, machinery, facilities and workforce – or the inclination to conduct long-distance business relationships at a critical time in their development. “We see these types of contract manufacturing services as being central to a re-vitalised manufacturing industry. Too much of this work has already been lost to the far-east and we hope that by making our own facilities available to others, we will be able to keep more of this manufacturing expertise within the UK.”