You are bang on Simon. The list goes on and on. Customers value this artisanal mentality; its a precious thing.
If you look at Formula 1 as an industry you come across all manner of engineering companies from Milton Keynes/Northampton areas and through the home counties. The ecoSystem takes time and I suspect government incentive to build.
I was looking at Danes and Swedes recently and they are proud of their products, as we in the UK, but they also talk about their suppliers and supply chains, locally, in the same breath. My experience in UK industry suggests to me that we are way too focussed on sourcing and cost to the point where suppliers eyes are bleeding. This is not a healthy or long term proposition and one that will come back to bite.
The accounts will cost cut the life out a company given the opportunity. Engineering must be allowed to thrive and not be strangled.
No offence to accountants on the forum. I like them, more so when they’re on a short leash…
You make an interesting point about supplier ecosystem… sometimes in SME the impression given is that the value and creativity is all created and one stage - and of course it isn’t - relationships with suppliers, and supporting partners is equally important.
You mention engineering being strangled - being an engineering architect I am not sure we are the first to get strangled as we are usually closely linked to sales, revenue generation and development and we appear to have an unhealthy shortage in the UK generally. Its operations and support in my experience and certain business administration functions that can feel the crunch first… and increasingly I am seeing a naive view that some of those functions can be replaced by AI, rather then evolving those roles to better address the new expected norms.
So yes at certain types you do have to cut the cloth to fit… but one needs to scale down appropriately for continuity… unless you are deliberately being driven into a fire sale - and in which case its probably best to leave and move on anyway.
Sure. My concern would be “unknowingly” being driven in any direction. I would also add that it’s not uncommon for shareholder demands being met through opportunistic and short term basis at the cost of investment for the longer term. Historically, this has been a problem in many business’ and not just the UK.
Survival, growth, profitability, tensions across the business. Easy to talk about but hard to do.
Fascinating! Almost the entire industry driven to the ‘Designed Somewhere Manufactured in China’ model, the latter frequently in 2pt text below a suitable large CE marking, the latter probably specified by an EU standard.
Couldn’t help reflecting on comments above re supply chain loyalty and relationships. It all sounds holistic and wholesome, but when Naim source - say - streaming boards or class D modules from trusted supply partners those warm fuzzy feelings are notably absent from the forum!
well than can be managed I feel by how you market and position your relationship with your suppliers.
Some industries like with Food and Drink and quality furniture do this well.
If you treat your supply chain as simply providing commodity however - then it is hardly going to encourage those warm confidence inspiring feelings.
With respect to Naim, those network transport protocol boards you are referring to were developed in partnership with Naim and StreamUnlimited Engineering.. there was a promotion of this in the early days but it has subsided. Additionally Naim primarily use Texas Instruments components - clearly for good reasons - and TI are a market leader in many areas with regard to such components - but yes you dont hear much at all about that relationship. Then there are the toroidal transformers - those are carefully sourced and manufactured - they could be promoted more … it goes on. In the modern world moving beyond the artisan, the magic doesn’t all happen at the foundry
It is horrible. It’s the consumers fault though. People are addicted to buy cheap and move on quickly. Fashion as a prime example but so many things in the household are so easily replaced.
Yes, it’s very sad. But there are great examples out of there of doing things differently. I’ve bought and been given quite a lot of stuff from Community Clothing. Recently I got two jumpers and a beanie hat, all made in Scotland from British wool. And my socks are made in East Sussex. They pay their suppliers properly and price things fairly. Don’t can be done.
well kind of – if the product were mass market then manufacture in China is often very effective. Where the production runs are much smaller and even to demand - the manufacture in China will not typically be optimum unless very modular (like with higher end Apple appliances etc). I guess with the hifi products we are talking about here they are more niche products rather than mass production… and as such local manufacture can be very effective and responsive. The other key thing is intelligently using automation - and then you start to level the playing fields.
Yes. Right to Repair is nice but most countries don’t have it and manufacturers tick the box but making things repairable but requiring a high bar of skill and training so as good as unrepairable for the average person.
Couples with the loss of skills in home appliance repair and loss of garages and sheds where that work traditionally happened.
People have been well trained to be repeat consumers with little personal benefit.
For example, when my wife’s phone battery swelled up and split the case open she took it to the vendor. The phone is 18 months old. I told her I was 100% certain they would concoct a way for the repair to cost exactly what she paid for the phone plus an unreasonable delay of weeks. Sure enough, $500 for the repair; $500 to rent a phone with data migrated; $200 reverse migration. $1200 total. The exact cost of the phone and it’s replacement.
Luckily I have a workshop with equipment for dealing with hazardous batteries including dealing with them going south and exploding. Replacement battery $24. 90 mins of my time. Job done. But people are chucking out mixers, televisions, phones, constantly like they have been programmed to.
I asked Gemini to design a Naim beanie from British wool, they came back with “Much like a Naim power supply, this hat is over-engineered for its purpose. It is designed to be “acoustically transparent” (it won’t muffle your surroundings) while providing a thermal barrier that reflects the warmth of a Class-A circuit.”
Hmm - I think attitudes are changing - certainly in some parts of the world. At one time personal/domestic tech was being superseded every year with faster processors and higher definition screens.. everyone was upgrading who could afford it - as it was better. And then the diminishing returns set in - last years model is as effectively as good this years so churn demand slows … then follows a consolidation of retailers who relied on this constant upgrade to support business models
The same has happened with mobile smart phones. In the UK people typically keep their mobile phones for three to four years now - sometimes much longer - where as three years ago it was typically one to two years… and this has effected certain business models. In short the compelling desire to replace has been diluted.
I still live somewhere where people are changing their phones every 6-12 months and, as demonstrated, repairs are made prohibitively expensive on purpose. Ditto big televisions. And the consumer has been trained to think repairs are bad and old things are “trash”.
Hanging onto my pre HDR television for 11 years; an old monitor from 2007 I’ve recapped twice; a rice cooker from 2005 makes me both an outlier and treated with suspicion like I must be secretly poor or something.
The irony is servicing decades old hifi is the exception to the cult of new here. Manufacturers with a similar ethos to long term servicing as Naim are far more common. Naim’s servicing is seen as exceptional in the UK. Here, it’s basically standard.
is it? I dont think it is that unusual for quality products in the UK that are made or serviced in the UK, certainly in my experience.. the challenge is that the more specialist the parts that are used - the higher the risk that replacement of a component over an extended period might not be possible…
We should do this much more all through Europe, to bring back jobs locally. Pay a bit more or use your cloth, electronics etc longer… There’s far too much understanding to buy “cheapest” possible/throw away, which support Asia jobs rather than Europe.
Three to four years?? Maybe so amongst the older generation but I reckon the younger change more often. The industry tracks this stuff tho’. This switch has historically been driven by the operator - change your phone at contract end - and used as a means to retain the customer.
