Before this thread gets any more nationalist I think it’s time for us to understand that everywhere is capable of making good and/or poor products. Its management and processes that make the difference.
Interest and passion is different IMHO than instantly thinking something will be bad because it is not made within the same map drawn boundaries one finds oneself in.
I am pretty sure Naim is not in the bussiness of going bankrupt after all the years and will do the necessary quality control to ensure the quality remains the same.
Can we do a factory tour?
In this day and age, with supply chain issues, workforce constraints, currency issues, competition etc, wherever you are and whatever business you are in I see this strategy a lot in my professional capacity. It may be well overdue. It’s certainly not a worry to me, either professionally or as a 30+ year customer. I would expect it to help the business.
With Focal and Naim together I think the owners understand what makes the brands tick. German and Japanese manufacturers have been doing this for years, Land Rover, Rolls Royce (engines) and BAE plc too.
Quality might improve if some production is moved away from Salisbury.
The number of soldering/assembly stations is finite. The only way to increase production is reduce assembly time, which could reduce quality. Salisbury might have reached a point where throughput is affecting quality.
So. New production facility equals, less pressure on Salisbury, equals improved quality.
Imagine the furore if the Slovakian built units get a reputation as more reliable than uk units
Indeed!
This is an excellent example; it’s hardly changed. There’s at least 1 person in the video who is still there.
The robot inserting machine and the flow solder machine have been retired but were in use in 2017.
All the shelves and trolleys are still there!
There’s a newer one from a couple of years ago also on YouTube.
Same here.
The forum’s John Bulls would never live it down!
Yes, you are likely correct esp. given as you recently worked there and know the organisation more intimately than I do.
My data came from the published annual financial statements which indicate:
No. of Employees:
2021 2011 Diff
R&D 32 18 +14
Prodn. 80 79 +1
Admin. 39 27 +12
TOTAL 151 124 +27
Assuming there aren’t any production workers who are not employees (in the legal sense) - unlikely, as I don’t recall anything relevant in the notes to the accounts, then the point still stands that the 2.4x turnover growth can’t all be down to the number of production workers.
You are correct, production support roles including goods in/out, production planning/scheduling etc unless they are included in admin (doubtful) then regardless Naim’s in-house production capacity is largely unchanged over the last 10 years. This is for a particular reason and is likely limited to production space if workers are already working rotating shifts 24/7 (?) (but that brings labour premia for unsociable hours, which hits gross margins).
Assuming workforce capacity is maximised then short of relocation, outsourcing/subcontracting certain production elsewhere is the only option to sustain growth, compete globally and survive for the next decade.
My personal views still hold IMHO, but this (capacity) issue has been known to the company and especially its new owners ever since merger/acquisition a decade ago and with range expansion (hopefully with greater unit volumes) is only at risk of this limiting factor getting more acute. Outsourcing of higher volume lower end (and presumably tighter margin) product range(s) has to be the current Naim strategy.
If UK focussed on premium higher margin, lower volume products for the UK market and those in RoW with deep(ish) pockets and retain a centre of R&D excellence with dependable after sales support and service then hopefully Naim will pull this off and in so doing hopefully secure another 10 years of making (replaying) quality music.
Best wishes
Julian
For me hi-fi is more than just the sound. Build quality, design, ease of use are also very important when choosing hi-fi equipement. To own stuff which is made in the UK (and has been made in the UK for decades) contributes to the pride and pleasure of owning Naim equipement, and also makes me willing to spend a bit more because i know that it is more expensive to build in countries such as the UK.
I also think there is difference between shopping for say chinese hifi made in china or a UK manufacturer deciding to build in a different location like KEF or Cambridge, and many others. Every one knows that good build quality can be achieved almost anywhere, that is surely not the point here.
Ultimately, it is a personal choice and what might be a priority for one person may be negligible for another.
Further to my post yesterday and subsequent replies, I think the points I was attempting to make have been taken slightly out of the context I intended so I would like apologise for that & not for clarifying what I was trying to make sooner.
The point regarding Rolex/Patek is that they wouldn’t contemplate moving production outside of Switzerland…why? Is it because they believe that no other nation could do what they do there if said nations factory staff were fully trained, supervised etc. by Rolex/Patek Geneva factory staff or is it that part of their brand and heritage is derived from them both being manufacturers of fine Swiss watches in Switzerland and that the vast majority of their customers buy into this Swiss watch building tradition with the obvious exception of so called ‘investors’ trying to turn a quick profit on the grey market?
Regarding bespoke suits from Savile Row I am aware of the practices of some of the tailors. I’d recommend that if anyone is planning to go there they ask their cutter directly “where will this garment be cut/sewn/finished”? The point behind the Huntsman’s Bespoke 100 comment was that even though it was £2k cheaper, the known fact that it wasn’t made on (or around) Savile Row was clearly an issue for their customers who had bought into the British tailoring tradition (brand).
A thought occurred to me last night before going to sleep…I wondered what 50 years ago attracted the first wave of customers to Naim? Also, if the company had been formed in, and had designed/manufactured its products in Slovenia would they have been as popular as they are now with higher end Hi-Fi aficionados? Perhaps a few forum members go back that far with Naim and could shed some light on those times. Be amazing to hear their experiences👍🏻
I then reasoned that it could have been partly due to the fact that Naim was born out of British Hi-Fi’s reputation as being some of the best in the world given the relevant expertise within the UK along with the fact that the early and subsequent R&D, products available, after sales support delivered on that expectation…It goes without saying that if the products hadn’t been right sound wise it would have been an issue and perhaps Naim would not have grown to what it became.
I then pondered if any of us can truly state that when buying new, we have auditioned every single hi-fi manufacturers products that are available where we live in every conceivable configuration at a given price point and decided that beyond all doubt that, in our case, the Naim equipment we purchase is the best sound to our our ears achievable within our budget, or do we make a short list of potential products within our budget based on reviews/recommendations, audition them, and make our selections from there based mainly on how it sounds, but also the products aesthetics, it’s features, after sales service and dare I say the tradition and heritage of the brand itself?
It was roughly 8am to 4pm, or earlier. The place is quiet after 5. It’s definitely not a 24/7 production line anymore!
For practical reasons (the canteen!) there was a rough split of 150 divide by 3 so I’ve always thought of production as 50, r&d plus r&d test as 50, and everyone else (which incl me at the time) as 50. Give or take. My recollection when passing through the production area was maybe 15 people building something at any one time. I could be completely wrong with that number but it always felt quiet and focussed apart from the musos scattered around playing r2.
I see there are quite a few people on the forum extolling the virtues of Japanese whisky, on the whisky thread…
Ironically enough Rolex was founded in Britain and was originally based there, only later relocating to Switzerland, driven primarily by taxation conditions in the UK on luxury goods, gold and silver with Switzerland at the time, providing far more favourable market conditions accordingly.
Maybe Naim should just move its HQ to Geneva and have a factory in Germany, that should satisfy any quality pedants!
Equating the need to obtain more factory space with the need to move production abroad seems disingenuous to me; I am sure there could be suitable premises not far from Southampton Road that would make the cost of off-shoring look expensive.
This matches a story from one of Apple’s QC-groups traveling around subcontractors in china. They inspected the factory everything was fine … but it seemed to small to build all those parts … after a while, behind a large wall, they found the real factory. It did not meet the standards.
Morgan Sportscars maintain a cramped difficult site, in order to deliver hand made (mostly) sports car at the end of a long waiting list.
I wonder if / when we’ll start seeing New Classic kit without the Designed and Made in the UK label. Every piece I’ve seen so far in the wild seemingly has been of UK provenance, but AFAIK only British customers have been the lucky few secure the first batch of releases. When my order arrives this week (I live in California), I will be anxious to check the back label.