One Irish China Expert Is Taking the ‘Hard’ Out of Hardware | Hacker News Reader

One Irish China Expert Is Taking the ‘Hard’ Out of Hardware

bloomberg.com

12 pointscheatdeath7 comments

After looking through the article, I think that "one Irish China expert" is just the world's least elegant way of referring to an Irishman who is an expert on manufacturing and works in China (among other places):

> … the Irish CEO has built a contracted network of around 100 trusted factories in Shenzhen, China’s manufacturing heartland, to supply technology companies including Apple, Beats and Xiaomi.

I agree, my initial reading of the title was that he was an expert on bone china - although the capital 'C' in China should have clarified that. I feel "Irish expert of business in China" would have been clearer.

I think everyone here is too smart to follow this kind of pers-vatorial too literally? Or Bloomberg, at all, actually?

But anyway, the story is about someone (who happens to be Irish) who is trying to "retail" manufacturing. That's of course a useful service, and might work for a first production run, but it potentially cripples the entire project if that "retail" margin is significant.

For example, the bike light that's mentioned has got lots of press and "design blog" coverage, but it's something ridiculous like $40-50 to buy, and I've seen knock-offs, already, on aliexpress for less than half that. Is that the kind of Chinese manufacturing you need?

Also Bloomberg's mast photo makes the guy look like he's trying to strike a "power pose", which fails in too many ways to count.

I;m curious how he ships out of China within 3-5 days at competitive rates. I've inquired with a lot of people, and there seems no way to avoid exuberant rates via air for very low weight shipping (less than 50kg), even via group-buy style agreements.

I would assume that it is about volume. PCH is not exactly what one would call small startup.

That's right, there's also really large supply of air freight, which tends to be obscured when small shippers get hugely inflated quotes. When you ship 40,000 boxes a day, those little boxes are bundled into giant pallets, most of which get shipped as belly cargo on passenger planes with excess space. A quick search shows trans-Pacific rates are quite reasonable these days! http://www.aircargonews.net/news/single-view/news/drewry-air...

Exactly. At those wholesale rates, $3 per KG of cargo via air even with a few days delay is amazing in the possibilities it raises, from production to usage.

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