international reports
Dalian Sales, unveiled at EMO last year, is the fruit of an agreement whereby 600 Group
handles sales in Europe for Dalian Machine Tool Group (DMTG), the largest machine tool
manufacturer in China and the eighth largest in the world. But it didn’t happen overnight.
Building machines
…and bridges
600 CEO Andrew Dick with
DMTG Chairman Chen
Yongkai and the team
at DMTG headquarters
IT was last September when 600 Group announced a
new key strand of its global strategy, as Dalian Sales made
its debut at EMO. ‘Highly relevant because Germany is the
most demanding market,’ observes marketing director
Stephen LeBeau; ‘and they were asking all the questions
about quality, spares, support, reliability.’ So were there any
awkward silences? No, because 600 Group had done all it
could to minimise the uncertainties and surprises.
‘We’d done our research by asking customers and
distributors what it was about Chinese machines that they
didn’t like - what were their prejudices,’ explains LeBeau.
The result is that the ‘top four’ prejudices - Specification,
CE compliance, Quality and After Sales - are addressed in
the ‘Four Star Assurance’ programme. ‘And so for example
we said right, we’ll factory inspect every single machine
with our own team.’ To be specific, an independent team
of quality control and inspection engineers - a Chinese-
Western combination - is employed by 600 Group and
managed by 600 China, and inspects every machine before
shipping. The Group underwrites the quality and
inspection process for all ‘European’ machines; and
manuals have been revised in format to include the
information required by the Western market.
‘That is absolutely key and it’s one of the differentiating
factors,’ adds CEO Andrew Dick. ‘Nothing leaves China
that is going to be sold in connection with 600 Group,
which hasn’t had full inspection by our own people.’ This
includes Colchester Harrison machines which the Group
has manufactured under the relationship as well as the
Dalian machines. ‘There are many people who are
16 MWP march 2008
prejudiced’ continues Dick, ‘but many said the same things
about the Japanese. ‘We also have battle-hardened people
within 600 Group whose views probably reflect those that
exist more generally; so we had to do some internal selling
to a lot of very sceptical people.’ This process included
holding the 600 Group conference and strategy meeting at
Dalian, enabling 600 Group staff to meet their
counterparts and see the scale of investment.
What we have now is a fairly mature partnership - not
surprising, as the story began in the late ’90s with 600
Group’s activities in global sourcing, seeking for example a
company to manufacture the carcass of the Colchester and
Harrison manual lathes, products subject to a very price
sensitive market. It selected DMTG, because it had a good
understanding of quality standards, was already
manufacturing transfer lines and centre lathes (10,000 per
annum) for the Chinese market, was embarking on a range
of VMCs - and had just established a JV with Index to make
lathes for domestic consumption. Also, it was planning to
move to new premises in DD Port, an area in Dalian
province receiving substantial government funding.
Quality must be built in - not inspected out - so 600
Group engineers worked with DMTG to design a modern
and efficient process to produce the carcasses. This included
development of the quality control and inspection
processes; intellectual property of the lathes remains with
600 Group. This close and continuing participation of 600
Group’s engineers culminated in 2006 in the establishment
of 600 China. The aim was to manage the 600 Group
workforce at DMTG as well as to more efficiently further
develop market opportunities in the Far East.
With both partners benefiting, the relationship
strengthened and became more productive, building trust
as well as an effective commercial affiliation. In 2006 this
prompted DMTG to ask 600 Group to work with it on
developing the export of its own products into the West. By
now DMTG was the major supplier to its domestic market,
and its range had expanded to include CNC lathes and
vertical and horizontal machining centres.
Under a new collaborative arrangement 600 Group
established a team of its own and independent UK
engineers to evaluate each range of machines, and each
machine within that range. The aim was to ensure that the
machines met European and American standards (eg CE
mark) - and would be acceptable to the West on
technology, quality, accuracy, ergonomics and aesthetics.
The eight-man team was headed by Peter Cook, a timeserved
Group engineer and previously Technical
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