Buhler manufactures grain processing equipment for the Chinese market at its factory in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.

The Wuxi site has 3200 employees at 8 plants and more than 10 labs for customer testing of food ingredients, a service station and a center for die casting.

PROBLEM

Introduction of a new silo technology required a production process that was unusual to find for the large size pieces required in very limited volume. Eventhough they had a fairly large sourcing organization in China, Buhler had not been able to locate a suitable manufacturer. They decided to engage an external sourcing specialist.

SOLUTION

Scandic Sourcing accepted the challenging assignment and conducted a thorough investigation all over China. While the technology was not unusual the dimensions Buhler required were unusually large. Any factory that advertised the technological capabilities did not have the appropriate sized equipment. Scandic Soucing then reversed the search process to look for similar dimension end products and traced manufacturers backwards via networking through the supply chain.

RESULT

Scandic Sourcing was able to identify 5 new suppliers. What they had in common was that they were subcontractors to the military industry and were located in Western China in the cities of Chongqing, Chengdu and Xian. This is a very common situation that the best and most high-tech manufacturers work with a very limited customer base, don't advertise their presence and have to be found through industry networking.