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LED site visits in Shenzhen

By Richard Farmer, Product Development Manager ATG Airports

During the CIOE exhibition, I had several one-to-discussions, which progressed to site visits.

The first of these visits was to a young company situated on the outskirts of Shenzhen, which occupied a complete building with four separate floors in a dedicated, industrial complex. The company had the advantage that in addition to producing discrete LEDs, it was also integrating them into finished products, mainly for traffic signal and lighting applications.

The visit started with a demonstration of the two types of luminaires used for internal illumination of a 10 x 15 m room. The General Manager demonstrated that these products could produce either cool or warm white.

In the next room, the group was shown a comprehensive array of traffic-type products from conventional traffic control signals to a pedestrian indicator, which consisted of a mass of LEDs that were programmed to give the effect of an ‘running man’.

The General Manager explained that all of the products had been designed and developed in-house and were produced on the other floors of the building. The activities included individual manufacture of electronic modules and discrete LEDs that were then soldered by hand on the lower floors and subjected to life testing after final assembly. Finally, the LED packaging unit complete with clean room equipment was demonstrated.

All the LEDs and secondary optics had been designed and manufactured in-house. The manufacturing operation could produce up to 7000 units a day with a workforce capacity of 100 workers. The company seemed organized, though with little automation clearly relied on its workforce for most activities.

My next visit was to the “Research and Development” sector of Shenzhen. I was very excited about meeting this company and was looking forward to viewing a potential market leader of the future.

The recently constructed facility had an impressive foyer and polished product demonstration gallery. The area was surrounded by high-rise buildings, luxury cars and smart cafes - it could have Boston or Silicon Valley!

This company had a heritage that dated back 50 years and had an array of lighting, industrial and electronic entertainment goods. Their Managing Director was also a “party” member, whom they felt gave them considerable advantage in their home market.

Our discussions focused on their sales targets, soft loans, key blue-chip customers in the West, increased capitalization and their favourable company structure. However, the company’s manufacturing unit had been damaged by the recent earthquake and it was in the process of relocating the unit to the new premises in Shenzhen.

Product development however had a more pioneering spirit with two rooms dedicated to the construction of prototypes and another to works-type R&D for the development of chips.

The rest of the floor which the LED department occupied was in limbo. Desks were being constructed and the Marketing Director explained that they were waiting for funds to be released to complete the work.

The company was in a state of flux and subjecting itself to ambitious targets for the future. We left hoping that it would overcome its current difficulties and meet its ambitious objectives for the future.

I had lost several hours in my schedule but after some phone calls and the now familiar battle with the rush hour traffic, I arrived at a medium-sized multi-floor manufacturing unit in a more robust area of Shenzhen just outside the Economic Zone check points.

Although most of the staff had left for the evening some had stayed behind for our tour. I was treated to a comprehensive demonstration of an organized and clean unit that had fully embraced modern quality control issues and contemporary manufacturing disciplines.

I was shown every process from the careful handling of raw materials to the final photometric inspection and sorting of the final products. All processes were completed in a clean environment with machines purchased from Japan and Taiwan.

Although the product scope of supply was perhaps narrower than the other companies we had seen, they had decided to concentrate and excel in one particular area rather than dilute their efforts across many different activities. In conclusion, I was impressed with the scope and expertise that I had seen.

Contact: Tel: +44 (0) 1788 566 203

Email: Richard.farmer@atgairports.com

Posted by Jacqueline Hewett on September 15, 2008 10:16 AM | Permalink