How does a small company start making LED streetlight drivers? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 05:05:05 pm
content: Hello,The Phillips “Xitanium Xi FP 165W” LED driver and the Harvard Eng “CLH_150W” LED driver are both intended for the streetlighting market at 150W. They are competitor products (datasheets below) .Phillips is a Dutch company, and has a close association with NXP semiconductors, -as such Phillips can reap the benefits of massive component cost reductionHarvard Technology is a British company. There are no British Semiconductor fabrication plants in existence. As such, Harvard Technology cannot reap the benefit of component cost reductions like Philips can.Other non-UK companies who make streetlight drivers also have close associations with semiconductor fabrication plants…for example, Tridonic have a close association with Infineon. Samsung have a close association with their own semiconductor fabrication plant. So too do many others……As such, why do Harvard compete in the 150W streetlight driver market? They surely will be out-priced at every level?They surely will have to pay more for their electronics components? They have no association with any semiconductor fabrication plant. How do they manage to compete and sell their products which are pretty much the same spec as their more fortunate competitors?….(or do they not manage to sell their “like for like” products?)Do Harvard Technology get a UK government grant to produce LED streetlight drivers?Are LED streetlight drivers generally so over-priced that any small company can jump in and start making decent sales and money?Phillips “Xitanium Xi FP 165W” LED driver Datasheethttp://www.docs.lighting.philips.com/en_gb/oem/download/xitanium-led-drivers-outdoor/Xi_FP_165W_0.2-0.7A_SNLDAE_230V_C170_sXt_929000976206.pdfHarvard Eng “CLH_150W” LED driver Datasheet:http://www.harvardtechnology.com/files/1815/0358/4141/CLH__150W.pdf................................................My company is constantly carrying out costings of Switch Mode LED driver designs for streetlighting. Every time, we simply cannot compete with the multinational corporations who can call in massive component cost reductions.Not only that, but the huge multinational electronics corporations have huge financial backing which enables them to make their own custom Ferrite cores and formers. We simply cannot compete with this, since we cannot afford to do that. We have to use off-the-shelf cores and formers which are inevitably larger than the custom ones that the huge corporations get custom made. This makes our product not only more expensive, but also unfavourably larger in size.The arena of lighting, in particular, has been absolutely saturated with products. When small companys try to get in, the huge corporations simply carry out tactical price-cutting until the smaller competitor goes out of business. When we place a tender for an order for led streetlight drivers, the large corporations simply tell all the buyers that they will charge 10 Euros less than what we charge.Would you say that it is now impossible for a small company to enter the SMPS based LED streetlghting market?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 06:11:00 pm
content: As a small company you should focus on innovative products and not compete on price. The first step is to get a sales person on board who knows where the market oportunities are and what kind of features customers are willing to spend extra money on.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 07:14:23 pm
content: Yep, undifferentiated low end commodity product is not somewhere any small company can afford to play, economies of scale matter down there.You are fighting two things, firstly the don't give a shit guys, "Generic LED driver, yawn, I will pick something cheap from the catalogue", plenty of cheap drivers from China and they are NOT all utter junk.Secondly the guy who does understand TCO "I want the good stuff, Phillips have not let me down yet, they are worth the extra 25% on a part which is not a major cost of the system", getting the sort of reputation that sells to those guys is hard and takes years. They understand that a driver (or even entire lamp head) is a tiny part of the price of the installed street light and that lifetime maintenance can easily swamp everything else, so he is conservative in what he buys.Instead, trade on unique selling points that your customers are actually willing to pay for, Harvard for example seem to have something which I suspect is mesh networking built in to their kit. Software has zero marginal cost, add value here. I have product with BOM costs in the 10-20% of FG price region, where most of the value is in the code, it is a nice place to be.I would note that custom magnetics are actually NOT that expensive, by the time you are ordering a few hundred pieces the NRE is starting to become amortised and by the time you hit a few thousand....Have you actually got relationships with the sales reps and FAEs from your parts suppliers (And I don't mean Mouser/Farnell/Digikey), using full service distribution is a mugs game in production volumes.Regards, Dan.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 07:19:34 pm
content: Quote from: dmills on March 03, 2018, 07:14:23 pmThis.And also the stuff about not bothering if you're just making a 'me too' product.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 07:25:22 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 05:05:05 pmI'd say you just need the right connections to get the job. It's called politics.Maybe you can offer a small municipality or business park a trial for good PR?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 07:29:53 pm
content: I'll echo the other points, and add that your focusing on component cost is probably a red herring.Most large companies divide themselves internally into autonomous business units. Each business unit will sell its products toanycustomer (internal or external); the price principally is based on volume and business risk - and the people that negotiate prices.There's no point in reducing prices on an unreliable product; all that means is that you'll lose money faster. Hence, produce a reliable product, once you have a sales record you will be seen as less of a business risk and will be able to negotiate a lower price.BTW, what about Plessey Semiconductors; they seem very active in innovative LEDs and lighting.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 07:32:19 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 05:05:05 pmPrice should not be a differentiator in a small volume business model. If you are a small company you need to have unique selling points other than price.Look at any product space where there are small volume players. There is always something special and different about their products that makes them attractive to customers compared to the high volume market. If a small volume manufacturer is to stay in business they have to come up with those special USPs.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 07:48:21 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 05:05:05 pmWhat's your evidence that they have no association with fab plants, or that their products are even assembled in the UK? Is not the entirety of the EU a single market (at least until Brexit plays out)? There's no significant penalty for dealing with a distributor/fab plant outside of the UK but within the EU, right?If you really want to know who makes the semiconductors in their products, simply buy some and look.QuoteMaybe not a grant (conspiracy theory when suggested without facts), but I suspect that UK government will favor UK companies when purchasing if they are competitive and capable. That's sort of how governments work.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 08:06:02 pm
content: QuoteThankyou for bringing this up...since you have instigated this topic i think its only contributory for me to note the following in relevant reply to yourselfhttps://massey276.wixsite.com/ukdecline..Because in UK there is certainly a total lack of desire to put the UK first.(i will delete the above website if you wish, but it is a relevant answer to Nusa's kindly contributed comment.)QuoteI am sorry but i totally disagree with that...the EU is not about an equality of nations at all in my opinion. Its unfortunately naive to believe that the UK is considered anything but an unwanted competitor for business to the major countries of the EU..in my opinion. (i can, if you wish, back this up).QuoteThanks, you wouldnt believe how heavy , gungy and sticky and damned unpleasant the potting compound is. I started gouging it off, but it was flying all over the place as the "spudger" kept slipping, and went all over the carpet, so i got told to stop.QuoteThanks, i agree, but with streetlights, they're a bit prescriptive, and its difficult to think of any novel variations on theme for them.Quotehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessey#Plessey_Semiconductors_Ltd.Thanks, but Plessey semiconductors dont have any offerings suitable for the LED streetlighting market (not at the moment anyway).The CamGan LED business that Plessey semi bought has been a "jam tomorrow" business for the last 10 years at the very least......no jam anywhere in sight yet though. "Auger recombination" stands against the ambitions of CamGan, and still is nowhere near being solved.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 08:54:43 pm
content: Pretty sure I can come up with some things that would be at least possible selling points.How about adding a pin photodiode or two and actually networking all the units in an area optically by modulating the array itself? Low data rate, but if it means that the lamp either side can report on a failed unit?Or can report that the optical head efficiency is down and that it needs attention?How about including local leakage current detection for the incoming and loop out power connections? Being able to report that the cable linking lamp 103 and lamp 104 has been compromised and has 10mA of earth leakage might be good for the preventative maintenance guys?Given the very high cost of getting a crew out with a cherry picker to fettle these things, there has to be margin in a really good telemetry and status reporting scheme, planned maintenance is always cheaper then doing it as needed?I don't know, not a streetlight expert, it is for your marketing people to tell your product managers what your customers pain points are, that is kind of their job.Regards, Dan.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 09:09:32 pm
content: In general, I discovered (accidentally) some years ago that USP is the only way to compete if you want to maintain margin.I do monitor competitive products to mine mostly to roughly determine margins, and occasionally it’s about the technology itself particularly if I see a possible performance benefit I could learn from.Most of what I learn is from my own product development cycle: I already have the concept, reverse engineering a competitor product for any more than a passing interest in the key parts they’ve used, or a block diagram, I just don’t bother with. Frankly, the amount of time you can spend reverse engineering can far outweigh just figuring it out yourself, particularly if there’s software involved.Thankfully I haven’t needed to lift someting out of epoxy, but bearing in mind your market I would seriously encourage you to do so, if only to satisfy your own curiosity.For the volumes these folk are doing, and the size of their outfit, they will likely be manufacturing in, and using parts from the far east. The parts will not necessarily be in the catalogues of RS, Farnell, Mouser or Digikey. They will have their own people on the ground there benefitting from the secondary market of no-name and generic parts, organising and managing cheap manufacturing and, this is key, understanding the culture.I don’t necessarily buy that Philips get (or even use) NXP parts on the cheap, certainly not to the extent where it would be make or break for a competitive product wih USP. Sure, there may be quantity discounts, but they would be open to anyone.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 09:16:37 pm
content: They recently installed LED street lights in our office parking lot. They come on at dusk, as you would expect, but only with a low level of illumination. However they have motion detectors and whenever they detect movement nearby they switch temporarily to a much brighter level. That's an example of intelligent thinking. The LED emitters will run cooler, last longer, and use less power.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 09:20:07 pm
content: Matches my experience.Getting too hung up on rev engineering is a mugs game, there is **very** seldom much secret sauce, and if you spend time copying what is already out there you are not developing the next thing.De-encapsulate for a quick look to see if there is anything really clever (Seldom!), then design something cool of your own.Regards, Dan.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 09:40:41 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 08:06:02 pmThe epic fail in that reasoning is the misguided idea you can make labour intensive products cheap in the UK (or anywhere else in Europe). Anyone who says they want to bring manufacturing back to a country is a complete and utter idiot (blond hair or not).The only way to compete is to be smarter and more innovative. As Howardlong wrote: Philips is able to leverage cheap labour in China without compromising the quality. You have a chance if you design a product in a way that it is cheaper to produce in Europe OR design a product which offers better value for money despite the higher price.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 09:46:56 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 03, 2018, 09:40:41 pmthe second is **FAR** easier to do in general.Regards, Dan.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 10:48:15 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 05:05:05 pmNot true, they are seperate companies and if you ever tore down a driver you would see there is no NXP microcontroller in it. They do however produce a lot of drivers so they can negotiate good prices for components.However it is a huge company and all the managers, secretaries, buildings and other overhead need to be paid. That is probably why there drivers are sold at three times the cost unable to compete on price with chinese products.So there is your answer, a small company without much overhead can compete but not if that company does not have the knowledge and/or quality products the consumers expect.QuoteNot entirely true, a lot of them are from WE but if you need a special non existing item they can make it for you but ofcourse that will only be viable at huge quantities. If you are starting out and don't have large sales that is your main issue, how to get marketing and sales up.QuoteIf WE has made such a product it would be strange if you could not buy it. But you have to make contact and start negotiations, whining from the side does not result in anything. Asking for 100 samples promising sales in the 100 thousands would get you started.QuoteThey cannot keep that up. So keep on going someday they have to make a profit and as said before to keep a huge company running costs way much more money than a small company.QuoteNo but to be honest having read many of your topics about failures in the field, unknown sw developers and continuing problems, my guess is that your company has way larger problems on its own than from competitors.It is easy to sell German cars that have a good reputation, it is very hard to sell Russian cars with a bad reputation, it is extremely hard to sell an unknown brand car without any reputation

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 11:15:48 pm
content: QuoteThanks but that is incorrect....Phillips is the biggest provider of UK streetlight drivers..by a long way.British Local Government literally make out specs which they have already matched to Phillips Xitanium drivers....so that Phillips drivers get purchased.QuoteI cannot understand how Chinese products can compete in the EU...there are enormous tariffs imposed on Chinese products into the EU.QuoteAs you know, NXP makes far more than just microcontrollers.Quote..Thanks, that is classic "Big corporation" speak.It is essential for any country to be able to design and make the vast majority of its own stuff.....else that country will become incapable and stagnate and die off.....like the UK is doing...just look at us....https://massey276.wixsite.com/ukdecline..the UK is the biggest "user" of Chinese imports....look where its gotten us!!!We're not down and out yet, but the rate of our descent down toward the third world is phenominal.We're plummeting and will be dead ducks soon....within a decade.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 11:48:50 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 11:15:48 pmIt's not the "making" step where the value is added, it's the "designing" step. The UK and other Western countries can compete very well in areas like good design, good service, good support, and so on.Case in point, designing streetlight drivers that are reliable, that work in adverse and real world conditions, that do not fail unexpectedly and let the customer down...

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 11:51:56 pm
content: Let's get back to basics.From what I read, you're in a small/medium sized company making LED drivers for street lamps. So who are your customers?Certainly not the public services responsible for street lamps, they want a complete lamp.Do you offer at least the complete head unit with LEDs, optics, housing etc.? It doesn't seems so.You are uncompetitive in every way against "corporations" that offer complete lighting solutions.My suggestion: go for architectural lighting. Cooperate with someone who knows about this. And someone who knows about LEDs. And someone who knows about optics. This is the kind of low-volume, high profit market where you can excel.And stop whining about big companies, EU, Brexit etc. Just go for it.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:31:20 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 03, 2018, 09:40:41 pmYou can bring manufacturing back to Europe or America. What you can't do is bring manufacturing jobs back to Europe or America.When jobs moved from Europe and America to Asia the choice was not whether to keep or export the jobs. The jobs were always going to go. The question was whether it was cheaper to automate and keep production local, or keep the work manual, and use cheaper workers. In most cases the low up front costs of using cheap labour won out. Very little work is inherently labour intensive. China is going through similar changes now. As labour costs have risen in China large amounts of assembly work has been taken from Chinese manual workers. Some has been automated and kept in China. Some has moved to Bangladesh (mostly clothing), Vietnam or Indonesia.Once things are highly automated a factory can be sited wherever the best tax and finance deals exist. That could be anywhere in the world.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:40:37 am
content: There's more to buying stuff than price. TCO is the real incentive and it is generally unknowable for a new product. Product warranty is worthless when the cost of labor swamps the cost of material. Unless the warranty covers labor, it is meaningless.When I was looking to buy 3 million feet of CAT 3 cable (back when), AT&T cost a lot more than the generic equivalent. The IT director got right to the point: Nobody ever got fired for buying AT&T. The implication was that buying a known quality product, especially if it subsequently failed (it didn't), would do a lot less damage to a career (mine) than buying generic could ever save.Same story when buying from IBM or any other name brand.There's the entire subject of game theory that applies to decision making:Consider a 2x2 matrix with the two rows labels "Buy AT&T" and "Buy Generic". Label the two columns "Project Success" and "Project Fail" and fill in some kind of reward or penalty.Maybe "Buy AT&T" with "Project Success" gives +5 - not a great score but passing. After all, you bought the most expensive material, it should be a success. Now, let's move to "Buy Generic" and "Project Success" - it still might just be a 5 or maybe a little more but basically, the job is done and there is no post-mortem. The savings are forgotten! And you will forever have to fight with IT when they can't get a network card to work. It's not even the cable's fault but it will always be the first thing on their minds. Plan to support the "Buy Generic" decision forever!Now let's move to "Buy AT&T" and "Project Fails" - the score is probably -5, not good but not necessarily a career ender. You bought the best and it wasn't good enough! But should you wind up in "Buy Generic" and "Project Fails", you will incur the maximum penalty. Not only did you fail, you were too stupid to buy quality material. Your career is toast!Just sayin'...

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 03:10:03 am
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 11:15:48 pmThat is called an architects specification, very common and most companies publish them for their products."Product shall be a 150W driver 92% efficient in a package measuring xmm by ymm, with mounting holes on zmm centres, product shall support... " Basically the specifier decides what they want to use then copies the paragraph from the back of the product datasheet into the tender document.Lazy? Possibly, but it means that I as a designer can meet a requirement to tender while still getting the stuff that I trust.Just means that you have to convince the guy writing the spec that he wants to put your architects spec on there instead of the Philips one.The last thing you want when required to tender for technical things is to write the thing so loosely that you get responses using different vendors kit, makes tender analysis a pain and "Best Value" something that often ends up in court, much better to make damn sure that only one OEMs stuff fits. If you are being really sneaky you make damn sure that only your preferred supplier is a dealer for that OEM....Incidentally, do this right and good scotch, expensive restaurants and free holidays come your way, funny how that happens.Regards, Dan(Who was once involved in tendering parts of a £5M job).

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 03:30:45 am
content: Quote from: dmills on March 04, 2018, 03:10:03 amAnd don't forget your children go to public school.

author: calexanian
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:06:33 am
content: I concur with most of the responses. Forget cost. You can't compete at first. What you need to do is offer something the current companies do not offer. Listen to the customers. Let them tell you what they need. When something is needed to fix a problem in the field, or make somebodies life easier cost is less of a concern. Also think about value added. Can you make your easier to install, more efficient, longer lived, easier to service, etc etc. Do you even offer service. Many large companies do not. If you plan on selling in your geographical area set up a post box they can send units in for repair if required, or loaner units available for trade or temporary use. That goes a long way.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:38:45 am
content: I think the window of opportunity has passed, unless you can come up with something really innovative that does something none of the other products on the market do. I've done a couple of side projects for the streetlighting industry and we have not even considered building the drivers, the market is flooded with them. Every lighting company out that does anything related to streetlights already has luminaires and drivers on the market. Most of them mature products that perform as advertised.As a small company you have to find and fill a niche.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 10:14:17 am
content: Quote from: treez on March 03, 2018, 11:15:48 pm

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 11:22:03 am
content: QuoteThanks, but sorry I just don’t agree that there is as much margin as you say. In the UK, we use billions of lighting products……but as far as switch mode LED lighting driver design goes….there are literally ONLY THREE SMALL UK-owned companies that operate in the design of switch mode LED drivers…….as follows….1…..Harvard Technology2…..Forge Europa3…..EPA Excil…if the margin was as big as you say, then there would be many more companies than the above three small ones.I was interviewed by the MD of a UK owned SMPS company...he told me they imported >90% of their SMPS from the Far East.....he told me that it simply was not worth designing or making most SMPS's in the UK. They have a "Receiver depot" near Reading...where the Far Eastern designed SMPS's get imported to...they then do some final checks on them before shipping them on to the UK customers.Other contributors here have said that the cost of runing big corporations is (relatively speaking) bigger than the cost of running small companies. I am sorry but again this is completely not the case. Especially not in basic technology areas such as lighting. Running small companies is far more costly than running a big corporation.......small companies have to do all the admin and regulatory stuff...but with a smaller bottom line.Also, notice how you cannot find a list price for the Philips Xitanium range of led drivers....this is because the price is 'fluid'.....it is varied to keep out smaller competitors that might at whichever time be trying to get in on some of the moolah.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 11:41:30 am
content: Is there any possibility of your company purchasing one of the above LED drivers and using them in your own luminaire / lamp head designs (is your company able to make decent luminaires? You seem to be making complete outdoor lights). That sounds like a way of improving your poor reliability record. Customers might be more willing to buy from you if you can state that you are using one of the market proven reliable drivers in them. Maybe you can come up with a USP in terms of ease of fitting, swapping, maintaining... or cosmetically [Edit: Or optical performance?]Given the stark factsas you perceive them, what doyouthink you should do, both from a company and personal perspective? At the moment, you just seem to be bemoaning the situation and asking what to do. It might be easier for people to comment on and add value to some proposed courses of action.

author: ogden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 11:50:11 am
content: Quote from: treez on March 04, 2018, 11:22:03 amI doubt that you have billion street lamps in UK. You can't drop in the same bag streetlamp driver (which is contract business "material") with poundland LED lamp. It's ridiculous.

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:06:53 pm
content: As others have said: Focus on value not price. Tell your customer this. If they want a cheap unreliable solution tell them you are not the right company. But if your customer also services the street lights push the costs of replacing them and possibility of law suits when they burn out and cause crime or traffic accidents. You sales department is key to doing this. Advertisements are a great way to sell on price but very hard to sell value. Look at all the Chinese ebay ads that are comically bad at selling value: "110% senior technician certified family safe ISO 9001/802.11g certified compliant 7,000kw device"Some companies also sell non/low profit products so they can retain/capture customers from their competitor. Its much easier to put in one order then two. Also if the customer is shopping a competitor and sees that it's easier to just switch to them its very hard to win that customer back. So hands on in person sales will work best if that is geographically possible. Also emphasize that they call and get a native English speaker not an email in Chinese or some call center where the people don't give a fuck.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:21:40 pm
content: £80 list on a ~£15 BOM, sounds perfectly reasonable to me, you want at least 3:1 to actually make a profit, and nobody pays list in reality.If you were taking them by the pallet load that £80, would be £60, and if you were taking them by the container load they would be cheaper again.Of course 90% of an undifferentiated product like a SMPSU is from the far east, why would that be a surprise? I can buy a Meanwell IRM30 for well under a tenner and it comes with all the labels that make the man from UL put a tick in his box when preparing the CB report, or I can design some sort of random flyback thing myself that might cost me £5 in BOM, 20k in NRE and opportunity costs, and £70k to certify!No UK company can sell me a UK made 30W, universal input potted flyback with all the marks required to make my life easy for that money (And with a two year warranty).Volume really matters when the product is basically undifferentiated.Regards, Dan.

author: Jay_Diddy_B
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:23:26 pm
content: Hi,You can get some insight into how well a company is doing by reading the financial reports. The reports for Harvard Technologies can be found here:https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02866874/filing-historyFrom the report, it looks like the company is pivoting away from LED drivers:The reason, they are losing money if I am reading the results correctly:Regards,Jay_Diddy_B

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:25:16 pm
content: Quote from: Beamin on March 04, 2018, 12:06:53 pmA very important item. Having worked for a UK traffic control equipment company in the past, I can tell you that local authorities are very unlikely to buy from a company that isn't ISO9001 accredited.Previous threads lead me to think that it is unlikely that your company has ISO9001 (I may be wrong). You need to put proper documented development and QA procedures in place and be audited against them.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:41:19 pm
content: QuoteThan that is your answer:1 you can not produce an equally reliable, tested and certified product2 you can not compete on price with asia/ big competition3 there is no rocket science secret patent thingy to have or get an advantage over competitors4 you have no foot in the door with large customers, nor the name / goodwill5 you have no global service dept when something goes bad tech support can fix it in two workdaysWhat do you want us to say?How about trying to make and sell smart phones? Also a Mission Impossible 10.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 12:42:48 pm
content: QuoteThanks, yes, i agree.Its actually the case that the Far East make a huge loss on SMPS's that they export to the West. This is because the aim of their game is to totally knock out Western Electronics Design capability..... and in places like UK...this is working wonderfully well for them.......greedy UK corporatists simply cannot resist the sound of some Far Eastern state enslaving its people to work for peanuts and then buying product from them. Maybe one day we can have slaves in UK too.....very nice for the corporatists.....no desire in UK to operate in a decent manner like Germany sucessfully does....Germany of course, being the world's largest exporter by capital value in 2014, and not enslaving a single one of its citizens to get there !!!...The end game of this, of course, is disaster for the West....at least for countries like UK which simply fills its boots with Far Eastern stuff , not giving a damned about the future because the greedy corporatists will have left the UK long before its inevitable collapse.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:21:17 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 04, 2018, 12:42:48 pmNo, it is not.QuoteNo it is not. It is their aim to advance their country. Sure, they take a less than rigorous approach to currency managing and they couldn't care less about IP but in the end their goal is to make a better life for their people and to carve a place on the world stage for their country. Everything else is a sad sob story from people who couldn't adapt to changing times and seek a scapegoat

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:27:26 pm
content: Absolutely, and they will be able to advance their country far more with countries like the UK becoming dependent on them.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:42:44 pm
content: To repeat... What areyourproposed alternative courses of action. I'm sure people will be quite constructive in commenting and adding value. Just whining will get you nowhere.P.S. Are you ISO9001? - that would be a constructive thing to do.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:50:24 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 04, 2018, 11:22:03 amThis is true of almost any volume business-to-business product. It's called "charging what the maket will bear"

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:51:41 pm
content: As I say, if I was running a million units a year, and in a position to place contracts for 250,000 electrolytic caps a month a year in advance, then my cost base would probably not be that different to Meanwells, this should be obvious.They can (probably) make some coin on those £10 switchers because I suspect that for them the BOM is about £3 or so, and I highly doubt that there is much manual slave labour involved in those things they are clearly designed for automated assembly, at which point what matter where they are put together, there are hardly any manufacturing jobs in running a pick and place line in any country. I highly doubt that there is an operating loss here.Now I have zero interest in playing in a highly cost constrained basically undifferentiated market like that where go big or go home is very much the only way to play, and frankly I have zero interest in designing power supplies, the money is in the higher level systems design not in commodity subsytems like jellybean power supplies and LED drives.Personally I think you guys are insane to be so tied up in trying to play in that space where your own costings say you cannot compete, there are plenty of niche opportunities out there where there is money to be made.Regards, Dan.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 01:56:03 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 04, 2018, 01:27:26 pmNobody is really dependent on China. They managed to build up a top notch electronics landscape in a generation or less, with no existing talent pool to draw from. If China ever were to abuse or leverage their position, there's nothing to keep us/you to rebuild our own industry in far less time (as the talent pool and much of the know-how is still there).

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:29:37 pm
content: Quote from: Ice-Tea on March 04, 2018, 01:21:17 pmLook what japan did with TV's in the 1980 or 70's (there's a video on the forum) they sold TV's below cost to put US companies out of business then up the prices. That's what amazon is doing. Their profit were negative the first several years then they upped them right now it's 1% but as they shut down more and more retailers they will sky rocket the price leaving the consumer with no choice. Highly unethical and mostly illegal or it used to be. Look at home depot in the 90's cheaper and better then local hardware store in many ways (NOT a replacement but to some it is). All our local hardware store went out of business as soon as that happened home depots prices sky rocketed. They are charging up to $5.00 for things (an eye bolt for example) that cost less then $0.25 cents at the hardware store or home depot in the 90's; adjusting for inflation that should cost 28 cents. Don't like it? Go buy off amazon or Walmart. The cost of low prices is steep. When I was in high school we built a 200$k house almost exclusively with stuff from home depot. I couldn't imagine doing that now paying $5.00 for 500-1000 bolts. Instead of companies countries are doing it and there are no regulations to put them in check.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:44:48 pm
content: Thankyou Beamin.Thankyou for having the integrity to call it like it is.I hope things get better for you under the Great Donald Trump, i'm sure they will.(i assume you are from USA as you speak of American stores etc)

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:44:56 pm
content: Quote from: ogden on March 04, 2018, 11:50:11 amAccording to a less than scientific search I did, there are somewhere in the area of 5.6 million street lights in the UK. With a population of a bit over 60 million people I think this is a reasonable number. Surely there are not more street lights than people.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:46:44 pm
content: Thanks, yes ok, i said there are billions of "Lighting products" (eg bulbs, lamps etc) in UK..not "streetlamps".

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 05:56:40 pm
content: Quote from: Beamin on March 04, 2018, 05:29:37 pmThey can charge that because people pay for it. But if you are smart and shop a bit further you can get much better prices. The Dutch equivalent of Amazon is great to find other webshops. If you buy direct from the webshop prices can be 75% less.

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 06:25:36 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 04, 2018, 05:44:48 pmIt will take years to undo the damage. While rich people are getting HUGE tax breaks (the Koch brothers are getting 27 MILLION MORE per week) I have had my benefits cut. If it doesn't increase next year I am going to have to try and live with family. I'm just hoping they don't cut the program that is paying for me to get an education so I can go back to work.The "corporations are not as profitable" as small businesses in a huge lie. They get volume rates on everything like their credit card machine, to postage, to tax breaks/ shelters, and loop holes. I had a retail business and someone was telling me the supplier I bought 80% of my inventory from was "not making enough profit" at their retail locations. They get the inventory directly from china for single digit % before mark up sale to customers. I paid 50 cents on the dollar for my inventory. I paid my employee 15.00 an our and they paid their employees 0.25 more then minimum wage. I actually worked there and their sales numbers were fantastic so what did they do? They cut their labor hours. The store manager gets so many hours per week he can work people. So they kept cutting hours as profit kept going up way over working the employees and making the store manager work 60 hours a week. I once punched in 5 minutes early and stayed late because the store was just overwhelmed with customers and you had to put away a constant 7 day a week delivery and there was no way the people could keep up. They said if I did it again I was fired. That's how cheap they are with the hours. They cut things until the profit falls as customers are walking out because lines are too long then they add a few hours to the schedule.They had sales targets: make or exceed them and they gave you a piece of paper saying good job and they were not easy, miss you numbers two weeks in a row and get fired. That's not commission. Get young enough employees and they are groomed to think this is how it works.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 12:51:50 am
content: treez, I mean no disrespect, but given the questions you’ve posed over the months (years?), it seems to me that your company is suffering from a distinct shortage of experience and expertise, both on the business and technical sides.I mean, it’s good that you guys are ambitious, but it seems to me you need to bring in some real subject matter experts if you really want to succeed. Asking questions on a web forum is no substitute for expertise and experience.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 01:36:33 am
content: Quote from: tooki on March 05, 2018, 12:51:50 amIt can be a substitute for expertise and experience, just an exceedingly poor one. Then, when experienced forum members disagree with him over a rather whacky conspiracy theory about China he thanks the one person who does agree for their "integrity" in doing so, thereby implying that the many people I've watched trying to help him over the months lack integrity. Hardly a way to thank people for all the times they've helped him prop up his ailing designs.

author: CopperCone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 05:35:17 pm
content: This method usually works, at least for a while.... For those of us lucky enough to have seen it in action...

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 08:50:48 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 05, 2018, 12:51:50 amAgreed. BEST TOOL EVER for business/life is the "designs for 6 sigma". It has all these tools/methods to seeing if you are solving the problem and gives things numerical weighted values that often go beyond common sense. you can use it to buy a car or see that a ubeam/solar road ways are really really bad ideas. If the people used just two methods of the 6 sigma idea they would have done things differently but I have a feeling the goal is just scam people until they run out of money or patience.