Molding the future of manufacturers

The other day, the project team I belong to visited a mold manufacturer to study the mold industry. The manufacturer mainly manufactures molds for die-casting of aluminum alloy. The president showed us their factory and talked to us about their industry.

Looking around the factory was really exciting! Do you know a mold is much larger than the product which the mold produces? A mold for an engine block was as big as a small car! I was surprised by the size of molds.

And, the molds were really complicated. I think many people tend to imagine such molds are simple. But actually, they need complicated gimmicks to rearrange their parts to demold aluminum products from molds. A mold consists of several parts and each part can slide back and forth to demold. Furthermore, they contain many water pipes inside to cool down hot aluminum alloy. It was amazing that many water tubes were connected to a mold.

I felt the company had high capabilities. But the president said China or other Asian countries were taking away their work although the quality of their molds and dies were much higher than the Chinese.

Japanese car manufacturers began to decide that they will order molds and dies for cars for the Chinese from the Chinese. It will make a serious impact on Japanese suppliers. The Japanese car industry yields 10 million automobiles a year and half of them are exported. If they decide to stop exporting and build factories and supply chains in China or other Asian countries, Japanese molds/dies suppliers' market will shrink to below 50%.

Chinese consumers aren't so particular about the quality of automobiles. Their main concern is the price. This is why the car manufacturers are shifting to order parts from local suppliers although the quality of Japanese products is much higher than local products.

But it seemed that the president had some strategies to survive. He was still aggressive to find new markets. I wish a good future for them.