Most companies trying to build hardware in China hit the same wall. Missed deadlines. Bad yield. Samples that may pass on paper but don't meet your requirements.A factory that says "no problem" but delivers chaos.I'm a mechatronics engineer by education. In practice, I take hardware products through development and into manufacturing in China. I know what your engineering team means when they write a spec, and I know what a Chinese factory engineer means when they nod and say yes. Those two things are often very different.
Here's what it usually looks like when a company comes to me:Timelines keep slipping. Samples are close but not right. Yield is bad.The engineering team is frustrated because they feel like they're not being understood. The factory is frustrated because they feel like the requirements keep changing. Nobody is lying. But nobody actually understands each other.
The gap isn't malicious. It's structural. Your engineers write specs in a language and format that makes sense to them. The factory reads those specs through a completely different technical and cultural lens. Without someone who has genuinely lived on both sides of that gap, you end up in an expensive loop of misaligned expectations and missed milestones.
I act as a force multiplier for both your team and the factory.I'm not a middleman who passes messages back and forth. I'm on the ground in China, embedded in the process, and I work with both sides simultaneously.For your engineering team, I translate what they actually want into something the factory can execute. Not just the words in the spec, but the intent behind them. For the factory, I set up clear rules of engagement and hold them to a standard they understand and respect. Because I've been on their side of the table too, I know how to have that conversation in a way that gets results.The practical work looks like this: Whether you already have a factory relationship or are starting from scratch, I assess whether the setup is capable of making your product. If it isn't, I identify exactly what needs to change and make it happen. I set up the working relationship between your team and the factory. I pre-empt issues before they become expensive problems. And when things go wrong, because they always do, I'm the person who can walk onto the factory floor and talk directly to the engineers in Mandarin, figure out what's actually happening, and fix it.
There are a few things I can do that most people in this space genuinely can't.I speak fluent Mandarin. I can sit in a room with a factory engineer and have a real technical conversation.I am deeply technical. I've done both the R&D side and the manufacturing side. Most consultants in this space have done one or the other.I'm honest. If I see problems, I'll tell you before we've spent time and money finding out the hard way.I move fast. Keep things simple. I don't want you paying for Fortune 500 processes when you're a 10 person team.I prefer to work with startups. Startups are seen as high-risk by traditional agencies. I actively want to work with them, because I understand their specific constraints and I think the work is more interesting.
I don't do one-off inspections or cheap sourcing gigs. I don't take on projects without a real spec and a real product. And I don't work with companies who want a cheap middleman - there are plenty of those around, and they're not hard to find.What I do is a long-term embedded partnership. A typical engagement runs for over a year (longest is 9 years - my first client is still with me). You're not hiring a consultant to write a report. You're bringing on a dedicated China operations brain for the duration of your product development cycle.The reason it works that way is that the problems I solve aren't one-time problems. Getting the factory relationship right - whether that means building it from scratch or fixing what's already in place - is ongoing work. It compounds over time. The longer I'm embedded, the more I understand your product and your factory, and the more value I can add.If that sounds like what you need, let's talk. Even if the timing isn't right, I'm happy to point you in the right direction.