From the earliest days of UAP Ltd, 25 years ago, the company’s business model has always been to engage with customers in the UK, design innovative products around their requirements and work collaboratively with manufacturers in Asia to deliver the best possible quality at the most competitive price.
Overseas manufacturing is nothing unusual, but UAP’s commitment is that every item it sells will provide exceptional value, not just an attractive price. To keep that promise, the company does things a little differently. And, as UAP has grown – to a £22 million business with more than 6000 products in its range and a team of 180 people – the company’s product development expertise, quality management systems and talented staff, have all played a critical role in allowing it to scale up while continuing to raise the bar for the locks and ironmongery sector.
Pan Huiyi & John McLoughlin
On The Ground Expertise in China
In the early days, most of UAP’s manufacturing partners were in India but, over the past 25 years, the company has worked in partnership with factories in China, which adhere to UAP’s exacting quality and compliance standards, along with the company’s focus on staff wellbeing and fairness. To ensure the supply chain delivers against all these criteria, not only does UAP’s leadership team make regular visits to the Far East, which will resume now that travel restrictions have been eased, but the company also has a Far East supply chain manager, Pan Huiyi, who is Chinese and based in China.
Pan has wide-ranging business experience in China and has worked for UAP for the past 12 years, after originally meeting UAP CEO, David Jennings, when she was employed by her previous company. After working for UAP on a freelance basis to help the company source products and supply chain partners, she took on a full time role. And now the company is opening an office and establishing as a trading company in China to implement further supply chain efficiencies and enable it to grow the Chinese team. Indeed, two additional members of staff have recently been appointed in China: purchaser, Dean Lu Guohua and administrator, Dandan Li Xudan.
l-r Lu Guohua, purchaser, Pan, Lee Xudan, admin officer
Pan explains: “Chinese manufacturers are used to doing business with companies from all over the world, so it’s not unusual for them to work to strict quality and compliance standards and undergo regular visits and audits from their customers. Even with systems and protocols in place, however, it can be hard to manage manufacturing at arm’s length or negotiate with partners when there are language and cultural differences.
“My presence on the ground in China and my knowledge as an experienced Chinese business person means that I can ensure UAP has much tighter control of pricing, quality, product development lead times and production schedules, enabling much greater transparency and reliability for UK customers.”
Pan’s day-to-day remit for UAP is diverse and plays an important role in ensuring that UK stock levels are maintained at optimum levels to ensure supply chain reliability for UAP’s UK customers and wholesaler networks.
“I am in constant communication with our Chinese manufacturing partners,” Pan continues, “making sure that their production schedules are aligned to UAP’s requirements and that the cost of manufacturing remains within the pricing strategy for each product.
“In China, there is a complex delivery chain that usually involves traders as intermediaries between the commissioning brand and the manufacturer. Our strategy is to manage our relationships with the factories direct, and we can only do that if we have a Chinese office.
“That direct contact is a big advantage for us, with a more formal UAP presence in China, we’re not only able to communicate with our factories direct, but we can also nurture those relationships to ensure we have loyal and committed manufacturing partners.”
Expertise in the UK
In addition to working with colleagues and supply chain partners in China, Pan works collaboratively with UAP colleagues in the UK to ensure a joined up, multi-disciplinary approach across the product concept, design, manufacturing, sales and logistics processes. The company has an in-house team of product designers and technical experts in the UK, who engage with colleagues in UAP’s sales, marketing and product management teams to generate new product concepts and develop them to prototype stage.
This activity brings together market intelligence and customer feedback to anticipate technological and legislative change, stay ahead of trade and consumer trends and ensure new products are commercially viable in both their cost to manufacture and the potential demand.
John McLoughlin, UAP’s technical services director explains: “Our focus is on developing products that anticipate legislation, offer a best-in-class, tested and accredited solution, and address the needs of both installers and end users.
“For example, the development of our new Kinetica+ K4 3* cylinder was inspired by the need to provide robust security for the end user that combats multiple break-in threats while providing smooth performance for years of operation. We also wanted to create a product that would offer compliance and ease of installation for the trade. By combining our design and technical expertise and market intelligence with our in-house 3D printing and testing and our closely managed partnerships with manufacturers, we have been able to bring a game-changing product to market, which offers value for money and an unprecedented array of features and benefits.”
The development process for Kinetica+ K4 is standard practice for UAP, as the company continues to innovate across its product portfolio and design products specifically tailored for the UK market. The product combines existing, patented innovations within the UAP portfolio with new advances, including the company’s industry first Bio+ keys; a completely new concept in keys developed by UAP to protect end users against bacteria and viruses. While the blade of key is fabricated from conventional metal, the coloured plastic bow has been treated with special additive in the key; proven to kill a variety of viruses and pathogens, including MRSA, fungal colonies and COV-SARS-2 (coronavirus).
UAP completes as much of the design, development and testing work as possible in-house at its headquarters in Greater Manchester before the company’s Chinese partners are briefed to produce the required tooling.
John continues, “UAP has invested in 3D printing capabilities, which enables the product design team to take the new products to prototype stage without having to incur the costs associated with tooling until the design has been refined.
“This is beneficial to the design and product development process in many ways. It allows the product development team to improve and refine the design without the delays that might be incurred if they had to wait for tooling to be produced and samples to be sent from China. It avoids the waste of materials during the product development process and it reduces the cost of product development, which can then be reflected in the price to the customer.”
Close collaboration between the UK UAP team and the company’s Chinese manufacturing partners is integral to completing the product development process and Pan plays an important role in connecting design and production and ensuring the finished design can be produced accurately and at scale.
Once a new product has been designed by UAP’s UK team, part of Pan’s role is also to translate and provide the technical specification for the new product. She is also responsible for monitoring the manufacturing partner’s development schedule for the first units, aligned to an agreed critical path.
Pan adds: “Effectively, we are able to work with our manufacturing partners as though they are an in-house department. In this way, we can ensure that customers can rely on UAP for both product quality and consistent lead times.”
Best in Class
Although UAP’s products are focused on serving the UK market, the company’s manufacturing partners in China, and the eyes and ears on the ground in the Far East that Pan provides also bring an international perspective to UAP’s product development process.
“UAP has a strong tradition of keeping a close watch on what the UK market is doing and looking for any opportunities to do things better,” Pan continues. “That’s how the company first started, by manufacturing pre-drilled and power-coated door knockers in a market that only offered a single finish and an undrilled product.
“25 years later, keeping a close eye on emerging trends from around the world and working hand in glove with both leading locksmiths and our manufacturing partners helps us stay ahead in our industry. China is the world’s manufacturer so we leverage that experience and knowledge, ensuring that UAP’s supply chain arrangements are based on a true partnership approach.”