Making Africa in Shenzhen (Part Three)
Product Prototyping and Testing
This is the third part of this series, here are the first and second.
My Shenzhen trip, up to this point, had been very exciting and a big learning opportunity for me and my business. The success of my trip was hugely facilitated by the Shenzhen Open Innovation Labs (SZOIL) and Impact Hub Accra. Organizations like SZOIL serve as a point of contact for makers who have interest in manufacturing in Shenzhen through their industrial chain collaboration service.
I, of course, had to visit the SZOIL office to make formal introductions. After a serene ride in an electric-powered cab which gave me a good tour of the city, I arrived at Futian District which is Shenzhen’s Central Business District (CBD). With the aid of a map I got from my hotel’s front desk, I found the SZOIL office at the Sino-Finnish Design Park. The site had a lot of futuristic design elements and seemed the perfect location for a makerspace. Vicky Xie, the director for global cooperation (who was recently profiled by Make Magazine), gave me a tour of the space. It was fully furnished and housed many digital manufacturing equipment, from 3D printers to laser cutters and CNC machines. Such makerspaces function as outlets for creatives and hackers with product ideas to develop solutions. In Ghana, this model can be replicated to give hackers and DIY makers a place of exploring solutions to some of Ghana’s pressing problems as very few makers can afford the luxury of owning such equipment.
My friend Ben Chen, my assigned chaperone by SZOIL who was pivotal in helping me get my visa to China, gave me a tour of the famous Huaqiangbei area later that day. I was overwhelmed by the immense development and thought that had been put into setting up the market. This is a place where one can find whatever electronic component no matter the type. Some electronic shops were seven stories high with each level consisting of assorted components. According to my friend, one could find seven more of these buildings in the area. It was a bit overwhelming just seeing all the components I had once needed glaring at me. Where do I even start?
You don’t need to understand Mandarin here, just compute your buying price on the calculator and the seller computes back.
In Huaqiangbei, I could bargain for almost any component with the aid of a calculator. You don’t need to understand Mandarin here, just compute your buying price on the calculator and the seller computes back.
Most of the sellers at this market are Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), making this market a good place to source for suppliers if you are interested in assembling a product. By now, I had started getting accustomed to my surroundings and I had figured out how to move around. I had picked up the accent to pronounce my most frequently visited places in the city even going on to make small talk with taxi drivers. I took a cab and got to the factory I had previously negotiated with to manufacture my prototype, a little after 1pm that day. Upon my arrival, everything was set and the suppliers and tools needed to manufacture the prototype were ready waiting for my green light.
To cut down on the manufacturing costs of the prototype, we had agreed to use parts that already existed on the market rather than producing our own mould. These were parts that had been used for other products but most importantly had the same properties and could serve the same utility as the parts we needed to manufacture. Initially, I was a bit skeptical to go with this approach but I later became aware of the fact that this process of prototyping was to help the factory know how to manufacture my product in bulk. The most important thing to me was that I was assured the finished product would come out exactly like the design.
During the manufacturing of the prototype, I realized there were effective project management principles being observed. The factory had different workers with different skills sets and it was amazing how everyone attended to their duty in a timely manner. Everyone received their instructions and knew their roles which they each executed in a timely manner, almost like a well choreographed dance. I became somewhat of a consulting engineer on the project intervening when some parts of the design weren’t too clear or had some manufacturing inadequacies.
The collaboration within the ecosystem makes it easy to get an assembly line within the city to guarantee a finished product, almost no factory likes to do work by itself.
It’s very likely that in Shenzhen you are not going to get only one factory to build your product. But you don’t have to worry over suppliers and sub-contracted manufacturers; you can get in touch with a major factory and the bridge to suppliers and other sub-factories would be created. The collaboration within the ecosystem makes it easy to get an assembly line within the city to guarantee a finished product, almost no factory likes to do work by itself. I found this amazing mainly because of how fast it made the sourcing of input and assembly of the product. With this I was able to benefit from the competencies of other factories to build the product which reduced the cost of the product I was working on mainly because it eliminated waste in the manufacturing process. I would suggest that makers get in touch with a major manufacturer for their products and let the factory worry about the sourcing of input and sub-contracting of other factories. The vital requirement is to communicate your designs well and clearly to facilitate this process. Factories also have a host of designers that can help you improve on your design’s manufacturability if necessary.
This first round of manufacturing was to help prototype the product before mass commercialization and to give the factory a learning experience of how best to manufacture the product.
My hosts made sure I inspected the progress of the development with every step that was taken, they needed to get feedback on my satisfaction. I noticed the accuracy by which the factory staff worked, everything that was scheduled and costs that were predicted had little or no variance to the actual costs of the manufacturing process. This first round of manufacturing was to help prototype the product before mass commercialization and to give the factory a learning experience of how best to manufacture the product. The cost of this round of manufacturing was solely for labour and materials and had no markup costs for the factory. Most factories would accept this kind of business provided you show some commitment to mass produce with the same factory. Many factories have different financial requirement to doing business. For first time manufacturing with a factory, the factory would prefer you make one hundred percent financial commitment upfront and would assure you that subsequent rounds of manufacturing can be done with negotiated terms.
This approach is mostly due to their negative experience with clients who defaulted on financial agreements. Factories, in turn, have become cautious of taking first time jobs with different financial terms. So the onus lies on the maker to be able to pay for the first batch of manufacturing upfront and building trust between the manufacturer and his or her business. However, financing of a prototype does not follow such stringent financing requirements and the approach is different from factory to factory. It is always good to have such conversations with any manufacturer you intend to work with before traveling to meet them.
Fortunately for me, I had the backing of an organization like SZOIL to help me negotiate the terms of financing with the manufacturer. And since they were familiar to the terrain and the art of doing manufacturing business, SZOIL was very helpful to make sure both parties get the best deals. I suggest most makers use this approach when going to work with a factory for the first time. Such negotiations are critical to building hardware businesses. For me, this was crucial because, as a business, we want the product to get to market at a particular price range and this negotiations are fundamental to ensuring we meet that goal. We did this with consideration to shipping costs, taxes and marketing and distribution costs that would arise to get the product into the hands of customers.
By the third day of development, the prototype looked almost complete with about 97% of work completed. I was in great awe even though I witnessed the whole process, I could not have anticipated the pace of work. I had initially overestimated the amount of time it was going to take to build the product and to see my product design, now tangible, gave me a sense of fulfillment and pride. My new friends were focused on testing the product to make sure their work had been completed and that it matched the specifications set out before development. I was consulted on the best way to do a small test for the product and in discussing with the engineers we came away with a plan to do a test. I was skeptical because the performance of the product was designed to optimally operate in the hot and humid Ghanaian climate and it was early December in Shenzhen, meaning much colder weather. Still, we got together the materials for testing we scheduled it for the next day.
Shanzhai goods are not fake and had exactly the same specifications, design as manufactured brands; some might have been manufactured in the same factories as the original brands itself
I took the rest of the day to visit other places at the Huaqiangbei park. I decided to do this by myself to get familiar with the place. That evening, I visited various shops selling electronics, gadgets and even fashion accessories. Some of the shops I visited had lots of international brands in there, but at a curiously cheaper price. Upon inquiring from a friend I had made from one shop, because of his fair understanding of English and his general hospitality, he explained to me the Shanzhai concept. These goods were not fake in a straightforward sense and had exactly the same specifications and design as manufactured brands; some might have been manufactured in the same factories as the original brands itself. And as he explained you could tell that it was not something he was shy or embarrassed to say.
In fact, nobody was shy about Shanzhai, not even the shop owners who openly admitted it. Shanzhai goods are not fake goods as many might presume. While this does not say there aren’t fake goods, this is different. I need to get a bigger suitcase, I thought, as I left the market late at night. On my way to the subway station I could see the courier services taping boxes, loading trucks and counting their cash to mark the end of business for the day. I realized most of these boxes would find themselves on the other side of the world.
When we aspire for something bigger than ourselves and apply pragmatic and systematic principles in our approach we can attain the incredible
After the weekend, the engineers and I were eager to test the results of the prototype. The anticipation made us all arrive very early that morning for the test. The apparatus for the test was set and the moment of truth came. The jubilation that filled the room when the product started working was very relieving. Even in this cold weather the system worked perfectly to design specification. This was great because it implied superior performance when operated in Ghana’s hot and humid weather. Our jubilation did not only prove the success of the product, it was more than that. To me it was an intimation of what Shenzhen embodied. It was proof that when we aspire for something bigger than ourselves and apply pragmatic and systematic principles in our approach we can attain the incredible.
