Shared Centralized Procurement Allows 'Yutian Printing Machines' To Save Over 5 Million Yuan Annually.

Small and medium-sized enterprises often face such difficulties when purchasing-few supplier channels, weak bargaining power, and difficulty balancing procurement costs and product quality.

In Yutian County, a group of printing machine companies have joined forces to explore the establishment of a shared centralized procurement platform for large-scale purchases of production equipment, raw materials, and other items.

What changes does this new procurement model bring to the development of the local printing and packaging machinery industry cluster? A reporter went to Yutian County to investigate.

A few days ago, workers of Yutian County Juxing Printing and Packaging Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd. were assembling a fully automatic high-speed laminating machine. Photo by Hebei Daily reporter Zhao Jie

On July 22, at Hebei Xiezhong Trading Co., Ltd. located in Caitingqiao Town, Yutian County, sales manager Zong Wenqing organized the warehousing and outbound of goods in the warehouse.

The company has two warehouses, which are equipped with geared motors, bearings, vacuum pumps, pneumatic components and other goods, all of which are commonly used in the production of printing machines.

"Almost every day I am busy greeting the old customers of the Yutian printing machine industry." Zong Wenqing told reporters that vacuum pump shipments have been very large, and a batch of goods was purchased a few days ago.

During the interview, Zong Wenqing's mobile phone rang from time to time, and some customers asked him about ordering, delivery and other information.

"The goods we purchase in our centralized manner are low in price and good quality, and are very popular with local enterprises." Zong Wenqing said that since its establishment in 2018, the company has helped Yutian printing machine enterprises save more than 5 million yuan in procurement costs every year through large-scale procurement of equipment and parts.

Yutian County printing and packaging machinery industry has a history of more than 40 years, with a total of 216 complete machine manufacturing enterprises and 198 supporting enterprises, with a domestic market share of more than 20%, and has been rated as a national small and medium-sized enterprise characteristic industrial cluster.

"For every five printing machines in the country, one is produced in Yutian." Ma Zhixing, general manager of Hebei Xiezhong Trading Co., Ltd., said that however, most of the local printing machine enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises, small in scale and limited funds, and are in a disadvantageous position in the procurement of industrial products, which affects the sustainable development of industrial clusters.

Under the organization of the Yutian County Printing Machine Association, a number of printing machine enterprises in the county established Hebei Xiezhong Trading Co., Ltd. in the form of crowdfunding to build a shared centralized procurement platform to provide professional and large-scale centralized procurement services for local printing machine production, so as to enhance bargaining power and reduce procurement costs.

However, everything is difficult at the beginning. At the beginning of the centralized procurement business, there were few responders, and most printing machine companies took a wait-and-see attitude.

After discussion, they decided to use the German Baker vacuum pump as a breakthrough in centralized procurement and speak with the effect.

"Beck is a big international brand, and it is difficult to suppress the price because the purchase volume of a single company is small." Ma Zhixing said that after they arrived in Shanghai, they proposed a jaw-dropping purchase volume of the German manufacturer's Shanghai subsidiary - 1,000 units.

The other party shook his head in disbelief. You know, at that time, the annual sales volume of Baker vacuum pumps in Yutian County was only more than 100 units. 1,000 units, how can the local area use it up?

In 3 days, business negotiations were difficult. The German headquarters of this brand called and asked to "go to Yutian and take a look".

In Yutian County, Ma Zhixing took representatives of German manufacturers to transfer printing machine factories to investigate the usage data of various brands of vacuum pumps. The other party finally nodded.

Relying on the centralized purchase volume of 1,000 units, they finally bought the product at a price of less than 50%. This is a preferential price that Yutian printing machine companies have never enjoyed.

After the hit, the shared centralized procurement platform became famous, and many printing machine companies took the initiative to come to the door.

Subsequently, they actively carried out centralized procurement of brand products such as Sanhe Tongfei refrigeration equipment and Linxi bearing, and successively reached long-term cooperation, benefiting more than 200 Yutian printing machine enterprises.

In the production workshop of Tangshan Yuanchuang Automation Technology Co., Ltd. in Yutian County, automatic card slitting machines quickly rolled off the production line.

"Some of the motors and bearings in these slitting machines come from centralized procurement, which is not only cheap, but also fast delivery." Long Haijun, director of the company's production department, said that in the past, it took two or three months for the company to complete a purchase, which involved a lot of time and energy. Now, if the shared centralized procurement platform has inventory, it can be shipped on the same day. If there is no inventory, it will only take 1 month to complete the purchase.

They invested the money and time they saved in product research and development and process optimization, and launched a number of new products such as automatic card slitting machines.

"The popularity of leisure cards with the theme of Nezha and other themes continues to rise, driving the growth of orders." Long Haijun said that at present, the production lines of the company's three workshops are running at full capacity, and orders are full.

Tasting the sweetness of shared centralized procurement, Yutian County printing machine enterprises are holding more and more tightly, and "shared intelligent manufacturing" continues to extend to digital management, bank financing, exhibition and other fields.

"With the increasingly fierce market competition, it is imperative for industrial cluster enterprises to develop together." Guo Yizhen, president of the Yutian County Printing Machine Association, said that under the guidance of local industry and information technology departments, they organized enterprises to implement the standardization of the printing machine industry, promoted the development of the whole industrial chain of prepress, printing and post-press, and launched the regional brand of "Yutian Printing Machine", which enhanced the influence and competitiveness of the industrial cluster.