Start-up CNC24 on the road in China: supplier audits, supplier development and expansion of strategic partnerships
The smart manufacturer of precision components CNC24 regularly audits its suppliers worldwide. Most recently, Co-Founder and Chief Production Officer Marlon Gerat personally traveled to China as part of an audit tour for quality assurance and supplier development. The conclusion: Chinese suppliers remain an attractive choice for German mechanical engineering as a complement to European manufacturing partners.
CNC24 relies on a global network consisting of over 500 verified suppliers from 22 countries to provide its customers with customized procurement strategies. This also includes regular visits to the suppliers.
The India audit tour at the end of last year was followed by a fourteen-day audit trip to Shanghai, Dongguan and Shenzhen in China to check the development status of the Chinese manufacturers and identify their strengths and weaknesses on site. As part of its global sourcing strategy, CNC24 plans to continue distributing production worldwide in order to minimize risks in component procurement and achieve cost benefits for customers.
An individual assessment of the required manufacturing expertise is carried out for each component before orders are placed worldwide. The biggest advantage is for customers who procure their components online via CNC24. In addition to overcoming language and cultural barriers, the start-up relieves customers of the burden of handling customs and logistics processes, capacity planning, implementing quality assurance agreements and conducting audits.
The Chinese market has been important for German industry for decades. At ten percent in 2022, China is the second most important sales market for German mechanical engineering after the USA (source: VDMA Konjunktur Dezember 2022 Entwicklung der deutschen Maschinenproduktion (vdma.org).
At the same time, China is an important supplier of precision components that are used in German machines. In particular, the high level of manufacturing expertise in China means that high
quality at attractive prices.
Supply Chain China: Strengths and weaknesses of Chinese suppliers
CNC24’s suppliers are audited via an individually defined on-boarding process, web audits and personal visits. The audits are used to specifically identify the strengths and weaknesses of contract manufacturers in order to further develop the partners in China in a targeted manner.
The main aim of the trip was to carry out audits at 13 of the most important contract manufacturers in China, to get to know new potential suppliers and to successfully identify and eliminate recurring error patterns. To this end, the precise use of adequate measuring equipment, key quality assurance measures in the entire process documentation and a performance analysis for continuous improvement were discussed in joint workshops. Suppliers with a higher complaint rate were subjected to a strict quality inspection on site, as a result of which cooperation with some came to an end and others were added.
Marlon Gerat, Chief Production Officer at CNC24: “China is an important sales market and source of high-quality precision components for our customers from the German SME sector. The production of complex components with tight tolerances in combination with surface treatments requires many years of experience in the management of suppliers and sub-suppliers, which Chinese suppliers have acquired over the past decades. In many emerging production countries in Southeast Asia, this is not yet available across the board. A globally active smart manufacturer like CNC24 must have suppliers from China in its network just like partners from Germany and Europe.”
The regular audit trips and component measurement in the company’s own measuring center underline CNC24’s strategy of consolidating its quality leadership among B2B procurement platforms. China already accounts for 40 percent of all orders, putting it in first place, followed by Germany, India and Poland. As recently as December, Gerat traveled to India to audit 23 existing manufacturing partners and new suppliers. What has already been perfected in China, such as logistics, still needs to be expanded in India. A global network results in different regional advantages.
About CNC24:
CNC24, a brand of CNC24 GmbH, is a digital B2B procurement platform through which individual precision components can be sourced transparently and efficiently. Manufacturers from 22 countries produce the mechanical components individually according to customer specifications. The manufacturing processes offered by the leading online marketplace for mechanical engineering include turning, milling, sheet metal processing and additive manufacturing. With its innovative platform solution, the technology company creates a transparent process for the procurement of production parts and digitalizes the value chain through to a fully automated procurement process. Thanks to its global network of suppliers, the company can guarantee free capacity, high material availability and on-time delivery of components at all times. For quality control, all parts undergo an additional inspection process in the in-house measuring center before they are delivered. CNC24 was founded in 2019 by co-founders Willi Ruopp and Marlon Gerat. The start-up serves all industrial sectors with a need for production parts – from special machinery and plant engineering to IOT, medical, testing and measurement technology. Its customers include well-known companies such as SIEMENS, DIEHL Group, Qualcomm, KRONES AG, Carl Zeiss, Vishay, BASF, CERN, FANUC, Syntegon, Jonas & Redmann, the Max Planck Institute and Fraunhofer.
More information at: www.cnc24.com/
Press contact:
Alina Chekaibe
schoesslers GmbH
+49 151 6296 2435
