Designed In Raleigh, Made In China

The force behind the Pro Hip Hop Blog (a very well written and interesting read) e-mailed a great article the other day from his local, North Carolina newspaper. 

The story is in the Independent Weekly, serving Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and it is entitled, "Designed in Raleigh, made in China? A product steeped in local globalism."  It is written by Aly Khalifa, one of the owners of a self described "mom and pop" local product design company, Gamil Design. 

Mr. Khalifa starts out by talking about how Gamil's clients come from all over the world and "it's a reflection of the times that a small design firm like ours finds itself at the very heart of globalism, fascinating and scary as that is."  He then talks about how, eight years ago, coffee shop owner friends had sought his help in designing a single cup tea infuser, "durable enough to take the abuse that comes from being slung around in a cafe."  Gamil developed what it called "the Teastick, a device that can scoop, infuse, and stir tea.  It's comprised of stainless steel tubing and a perforated sleeve.

Gamil started by having the teastick made in the U.S.A. and this made it proud:

Believing that we had a simple product, we got the prototype made at Design Dimension in Raleigh. We found domestic suppliers for the raw materials fairly easily and believed we were well on our way to showing our clients that it was easy to produce a niche, high-quality item like the Teastick in the United States.

Gamil instantly sold out of a 150 product test run and then immediately sold out of the initial run as well.  "We were thrilled that our local product was resonating in New York and L.A."  "Excited about our success, we ordered more," only to be told that the costs would be double. 

The new price was simply too high to warrant continuing production so Gamil scoured the country for another manufacturer:

We looked all over for a way to revive the Teastick but our problem was scale. We could not find someone who would do a job as small as ours for a price that we could sell in the market. We were now stuck in that same economic predicament that our clients are in. We scoured the country for someone who could produce our Teastick, and continually hounded more than 70 suppliers only to have our drawings faxed back with "No Bid" written across them. The two military contractors who did give us bids listed prices in the stratosphere.

Stubbornly, we decided that our domestic sourcing problem was due to our design being mismatched with domestic capabilities. So we redesigned the Teastick so it could be made from castings (popular in the Midwest). However, the result was too heavy and sloppy to be at home in a fine tea setting. We gave up, and the Teastick was dropped.

A couple years later, Gamil was asked to design some bicycles for a friend's factory in China.  Gamil then realized the equipment used to make the bicycles could also be used to make Teasticks and it soon struck a deal to trade its design work for Teastick production.

Khalifa recites the following lessons learned:

Though I'm a proponent of buying local products for local needs, I have to admit that the current manufacturing atmosphere makes it tough. But I've also learned that manufacturing is not just about economics and nationality.

This experience has allowed me to further deepen my relationship with Roger [the manufacturer], and see how we can help each other with projects. Now we're selling Teasticks at a substantial volume all over the world, including Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan, Taiwan and Korea. In an ironic twist of our place in the global market, our latest and largest opportunity is to sell the Teastick is in China.

Khalifa's simple, heartfelt, first person account weaves in many of the themes of which I love to write, including the following:

1.  Small companies too should consider China outsourcing.

2.  Chinese outsourcing can increase U.S. employment, not just reduce it.  In this case, without China there would be no teasticks.

3.   Due diligence and relationships matter.  Gamil went with someone it knew, someone it trusted, and it has stuck with them. 

So in the best hip-hop lingo I can muster, props to my dog at Pro Hip Hop.