There are few things, which need to be discussed before we explain the reason why we decided to start manufacturing some of our Markbass products in Indonesia:
1. The economical crises, which Europe has been straggling with for the last five years, brought about a very different scenario for all small/medium size companies, especially in Italy, where manufacturing has become very expensive.
2. Many suppliers have closed down their businesses or they are no longer in the position to support their clients due to a lack of cash flow, putting monthly productions as well as delivery times at risk.
3. The supply time for all single components went from few weeks to several months, due the fact that the manufacturers (mainly of electronic components) have been focusing their attention primarily on Asian, American and European markets in general, leaving the Italian market at the very end.
Lots of suppliers dramatically reduced their presence inside the Italian market, forcing their clients to place orders sometimes 8 months ahead of time!!!
4. Raw materials like wood have become more and more expensive, and inside a niche market like the Musical Instruments Market, we couldn’t any longer compete with other manufacturers.
5. Almost entirely, manufacturers are now manufacturing in Asia.
6. Markbass never increased its price list since 2001. Offering the best products at fair prices is part of our core strategy.
7. Our product quality has been a stable datum and it hasn’t been compromised.
8. We didn’t want to lay off any of our workers.
Markbass brings INNOVATION to the Asian manufacturing system.
After taking under consideration all of the above, two years ago we started a cooperation with a well-known Indonesian company. We already had some sort of relationship with them because of our distribution in that part of the world, and we also knew them well because of their partnership with other companies very close to us.
At the beginning of these two years we started manufacturing only few components of our products. Once we were really sure of the product quality, we increased our production to all parts.
Our engineers and product specialists have been monitoring the manufacturing process since the very beginning, and they are always present during the assembling of all our products.
Our products are the same products as before: their quality hasn’t changed. We insisted that we kept using only components in line with our strategy and technical specifications.
We brought over our quality control/testing system, built a specialized unit and trained the workers one by one.
Our engineers have now daily exchanges of communication with the Indonesian technicians.
THE BIG NEWS: a cost for everyone else, an added value for Markbass.
Since the very beginning we decided to inspect all the products manufactured in Asia once they arrive in Italy. Despite the big cost of this operation, we felt it was a very important step to guarantee the quality of our products. No other companies do a secondary inspection of their products once in Italy!!!
Markbass not only opens and inspects every single product received from Indonesia. We also test every single one like it was manufactured in Italy. Our technicians do the testing, and we say with pride that they are the most reliable technicians in the world, with a knowledge that comes from passion and a lot of experience.
FINAL RESULT
Markbass has increased its quality. Not only did the Asian production evolve and become more and more specialized with the contribution of our technicians, we also noticed another significant increase in the overall quality of our products due to our “double testing system”. Each and every one of our products, which comes from Indonesia, is re-tested in Italy and labeled: Tested in Italy. Every product is tested 100% twice!
All the components stayed the same: from the speakers to the condensers, which we choose and test one by one; as well as from the transformers to all the other components.
When we started to manufacture in Asia we came to know that a lot of our competitors products were less expensive, not only because the labor was less expensive, the quality of their components were also cheaper and of a less quality.
With our Asian production, we were able to increase the quality of our products. We spent time and money explaining to our Indonesian partners that we didn’t want a cheaper product; we wanted to guarantee that our know-how and knowledge would stay the same and possibly become better.
Nobody at Markbass has been laid off. On the contrary: our staff has been increased with a couple of young engineers that now work with us full time!!! The human factor is very important to us and it will always come first!
CONCLUSIONS
It is no longer possible for us to label “made in Italy” on some of our products. But we guarantee you that our production system is UNIQUE and, statistics at hand, our quality is even better than before. I challenge anybody to find any difference between the two productions, starting from the felt we use… Our Indonesian partner told us that nobody uses that quality of felt!!!
Any difference that might exist between the two productions is due to internal decisions taken not because the products were going to be manufactured in Asia, but for technical reasons and for the improvement of the quality itself.
This needs to be stated one more time: no other company re-opens and re-checks their products manufactured in Asia!
At Markbass, every products delivered to the final customer, has been prior inspected by a specialized Markbass operator.
We continue to take responsibly in delivering to our customers only quality products, fully and utterly checked in Italy.
Thanks to our methods and our philosophy we are able to keep growing, keep sustaining our R&D in all the MarkWorld technology fields.
We have a state of the art laboratory able to keep the same price-quality standard we always had.
We say it loud: “re-tested in Italy”!!!
![[¦)]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 "Nymi [¦)]")
