Claire Badenhorst reports from Shenzhen, the export hub of China
The 1.5 million square foot production facility is located in the industrial area of Shenzhen, China, where they manufacture among others Wharfedale Pro, Wharfedale HiFi, Albion Guitar Amplification, COEF, F.A.L and Apogee Lighting, AudioLab, Quad, Mission, Castle, Ekco, LEAK and Luxman.
R&D groups are based in the UK and USA while manufacturing takes place in Shenzhen where around 1 million Pro Audio products are churned out annually. Another plant, four times the size of the Shenzhen operation, has been built in the nearby area of JiangXi, Ji’an where all operations will eventually be moved.
Few can really conceptualise that building anything from scratch involves the use of real raw material, skilled staff and a real production line. This statement may sound blatantly obvious but physically seeing a speaker being made from a steel rod is something special and somewhat mind blowing.
The fully ISO9001 approved factory is set up in a series of five story buildings. In total there must be more than ten. Each floor is more than three rugby fields in size and houses plenty of workers. The work force ranges from unskilled labour doing the simplest of jobs like tinning the pigtails on HF diaphragms to personnel loading, checking and fault-finding completed component boards, through to operating monster machinery.
We were first taken to the tool shop, a full production suite where they manufacture their own tooling. This is where the injection moulds are made with dies and jigs. One thing astounding about the IAG factory is the fact that they produce virtually all components in-house leaving very little to outsourced companies. The high level of vertical integration allows them to manufacture the smallest of components from nuts and bolts to chassis manufacture to winding the voice coils and manufacturing the PCBs for the crossover, even the packaging is made onsite. This allows them total control of the quality they produce, delivery times and costs.
In an operation of this magnitude one would expect to find the majority of the work to be done by machinery; sure there are machines, extremely advanced ones at that, but the incredible thing is to see how many human “machines’ actually make this wheel turn, with over 2 000 permanent staff at the Shenzen factory alone.
During the tour, we were shown each intricate process involved in making a speaker. In short: 750 metric tonnes of kinetic force press a 30mm steel rod into the part that the voice coil fits over (they call it a T-bar). The speaker cone literally gets sucked into a pre-determined mould in exactly three seconds then is dried by an extremely hot jig. The magnet is “charged’ in three seconds and everything gets tested a couple of times over.
The manufacturing is the responsibility of the general manager – personified in this case by the slim but not tender Mubashar Ali, simply introduced to us as “Ali’. Ali joined the IAG Group more than 10 years ago. He previously worked as a communications specialist (microwave) in the Royal Marines and eventually moved on to work for the renowned British Formula 1 firm, McLaren.
Ali comes over as a very relaxed person, but in his joking sarcasm you can tell he is really set on his reputation, in particular, the reputation of the quality his name is tied to. It takes a special character to run an operation of this magnitude; he has a big staff contingent and a huge amount of investment to look after. From what I saw during my visit to the factory, quality control is a top priority and I’m sure that anyone who has had the opportunity to visit the factory would strongly agree.
Audiosure is the sole distributor for Wharfedale Pro in South Africa and has been for over a decade. “Wharfedale Pro has been Audiosure’s biggest agency and has been in that number one position for as long as I can remember. The Wharfedale sales in South Africa rank very high worldwide, especially if you compare our actual sales to the size of the South African market,’ adds John Silver, General Manager – Pro Division.
Thank you to our friends at Audiosure and the IAG Group for a fantastic experience. To the reps and dealers in the running for next years’ trip – sell your hearts out, you don’t want to miss this one!
