A TURE STORY OF THE CHINESE METROLOGY INDUSTRY

By

Henry Wong

My name is Henry Wong, I am one of the shareholders of UNIMETRO metrology, I will tell you a true story, to show you what has happened in the last 15 years of the Chinese metrology market.

*All the mentioned points in this article only stand for my personal opinion. And it is only for sharing some of my personal experience and feeling, no offense to any of the brands or personal names mentioned below.

In 2007, I was graduated from one of the best business school in China, then I joined Easson, where I started my career. In those years 3 names are the most popular and well accepted in the Chinese metrology market, Easson, Rational and 3D Family. Also these 3 brands were starting to enter the global market and selling their products in many countries.

Looking back from now, that was exactly the starting point of a great industrial revolution in China which would last for long time until nowadays. Before then China was well known as a world factory, living on labor-intensive industries.

Easson was supplying linear encoders, profile projectors and vision measurement machines. Our main customers were molding, platic injection, pressing, toys industry...etc, which were relatively low end industries, and all the measuring application were quite simple. Also, there were not that much of competition because of information asymmetry, so we were selling really good in both the domestic and global market, which led to very fast development of Easson brand in very short time. For the other 2 big brands mentioned above were facing similar situation.

Then in Jan 2007, Mr. Steve Jobs introduced his Iphone to the world. Also, he put his production line in China. Just some months later, in Nov 2007, Google launched Android Beta version. I take this year as the first year of the Chinese industrial revolution. Since then the Chinese industry structure had been changed, from molding, plastic, metal to electroinics. Also means, from raw material industry to technology integration industry. Afterwards, Huawei, Xiaomi and BAT (Internet giant Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) rised up. These names changed our business and life totally in very short period.

Let’s come back to the metrology industry. After 2007, what had happened.

After seeing the success of Easson, Rational and 3D Family, many employees in the industry would like to try to start their own business. And they did it. Many new small brands established in this period. Most of the new players came from these 3 big brands. Because of the simple application and relatively low requirement from the end users, these new players could survive.

And at that time, there were one guy in China, who was extreamely popular, and he were claiming that he would make all the business easy in the world, his name was Jack Ma, and his Alibaba. He did what he meant. Those years Alibaba developed in a very high speed, it helped Chinese companies to open the international market, of course, including the metrology suppliers. These small brands used the Alibaba platform to start global marketing and selling their products to the world.

In the meantime, the global metrology market was lack of option. The end users could only choose from very limit brands from Europe, Japan or US, and those brands price were high. There was big gap in the medium low level market. Then Chinese products showed up. Many of the professional distributors saw the opportutity and cooperated with the Chinese brands. In my opinion, this period has created a great problem for the future development of the Chinese metrology in the global market and this problem last for long time.

Maybe you would ask, why? It looks like a very good beginning, Chinese products compensate the market gap, and all the distributors are willing to sell, this should be quite profitable for both sides. But unfortunately, the truth was not like this. There were too many players in this game, this made the situation became complicated. Some of the players were not even technically qualified to offer a precise instrument like a vision measurement machine. And many of the players, their only target was margin, but not concerning the quality. This led to the result that many low quality machines were sold in the global market. Further more, because of the fierce competition, all the sellers were cutting down the price to survive. No body could offer good service to the distributors, this made many of the professional distributors feeling very disappointed about Chinese products, and stop promoting them in the market. In this period,Chinese metrology products has earned very bad reputation in the global market. End users complained that Chinese products had no after sales service.

This had done great harm to the Chinese metrology industry, the influence even last until now. It has been very difficult to earn the trust back from the customers.

But until recent years, we finally have got a very good opportutity to change this situation.

As I mentioned above, since 2007 there were great industrial revolution going on in China because of Apple products entering and it is still keep changing our life until now. China was changing from a world OEM factory, to a real products supplier. Thanks to foxconn, they made most of the iphone production line done by local technology, this forced all the equipements suppliers like machining centers, automation, metrology manufacturers to improve themselves in a very short time. In the meantime, this made a very firm foundation and good reference for other giants to grow up in short time, like Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO, DJI, BYD... And around the electroinics giants there were many industries supporting. Such as Lens, CATL, TPK, JANUS... These new brands supported the giants to produce billions of cell phones, pads, electrical cars and sell to the world market.

Under this kind of extreme high pressure of production scale, these brands need stable and great quantity of metrology equipments to help to control quality. And the only option is Chinese products. Many metrology brands have caught this opportunity and have been growing fast in this period, including UNIMETRO. Others who can not follow the new rules have been totally eliminated.

We had to improve our technical level and products level to satisfy the measuring application. We are facing the most difficult situation in the measuring area, mass production, 24 by 7 running factories, and extremely strict accuracy requirement. We must improve the stability of the machine, software function, advanced optional accessories, such as laser or confocal laser, and flexibility for automation, last but not less, a very strong team of service, to satisfy these big customers requirement. This experiece forced UNIMETRO become a world level metrology manufacturer and the UNIMETRO products becomes world level.

After this long term experience, I confirm that, it is the right time to go out to the global market again, to earn back those reputaion and trust we have lost for years. I have gethered a very strong sales and supporting team, trying our best to represent the Chinese metrology industry, to output our best products and service to help more end users and factories to improve the products quality control level.

To achieve success in the global market again, of course it is not counting on a good slogan, but our products is the key. Thanks to the fast development of the Chinese industry, all the below conditions are allowing us to build the best metrology products in the world:

Low price and high quality raw materials, such as granite, aluminum, steel...

Mature and stable machining lines for parts manufacturing, ensure all the machines parts dimension are strictly controlled to keep stable accuracy for the final products.

Integrated solution for machine control, including motion control, illumination, signal transfering, all highly integrated in a processer, which makes the machine extremely stable.

Self-developed software, improving the flexibility of our machines application. Customized service are always available.

Experience of the assembling team and service team, after the test from the most difficult tasks we had in China, we know exactly how to build a good machine.

Now I can tell confidently that, the UNIMETRO products can be put in any corner of the world and do great contribution to the end user to help to achieve more advanced quality control. And the result also has come as we expected, after some years of effort in the global market, we have been approved by many international brands such as Samsung, Faurecia, ISC, Samsonite, Apple...If they can approved our products, I believe that UNIMETRO can help most of the factories in the world.

Metrology product is a tool, just like a spanner or a screw driver, it is not like a car or a lady bag, nobody should need a luxury brand to prove anything. When we are trying to select a metrology product, we should consider if this machine can help to solve problems, this should be the only reference for making our decision. UNIMETRO will eventually become a brand in the world some day, by then I am sure that we will still keep our reasonable price, and sincere service for all our customers.

From 2007 to 2021, these 15 years, it is the most valuable time in my life, I strated from my 23 years old, Now I am 37. It is also the most valuable time for the Chinese metrology industry development. I have been grown up from a boy to a man, and the industry has also grown up as a very competitive industry in the world.

Metrology industry give me my career, help me to build my own business to feed my family, also give me a great opportunity to do more contribution to the world and play much more important role than I can never even imagined. I respect metrology industry and even regard metrology with awe. This is the reason pushing me to make the best products and brand in the world.

This is my story, also this is the story of the metrology industry in China. Maybe you don’t know me, but if you are also a profession in this industry, the moment you have a chance to see or touch our products, you will understand, what I am trying to tell you are all the truth!

I am Henry Wong, I am from UNIMETRO METROLOGY.

There is still a long way ahead!

May 6th, 2021

Dongguan, China

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UNIMETRO website: https://www.unimetro.cn/