Xiaolan Town, Zhongshan City is known as the "Southern Lock City". There are many large and small smart lock companies on the town's Industrial Avenue. The "CSLP China Smart Lock Sharing Industry Platform" park invested and created by Guangdong Manshen Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Manshen") is located next to Xiaolan Industrial Avenue. On the base of the welcome sign at the entrance of the park, the words "smart lock full-process service provider" are particularly conspicuous. This is Manshen's corporate positioning and a condensed summary of its advantages.
Manshen shared bicycle smart lock products. From 2016 to 2017, Manshen delivered a total of 5.1 million shared bicycle smart locks to shared bicycle customers, making Manshen the world's largest smart lock manufacturer.Manshen shared bicycle smart lock products. From 2016 to 2017, Manshen delivered a total of 5.1 million shared bicycle smart locks to shared bicycle customers, making Manshen the world's largest smart lock manufacturer.
In August 2020, when the Zhongshan Municipal Market Supervision Administration implemented the "Zhongshan Industrial Product Quality Improvement Three-Year Action Plan" and issued the results of the quality benchmark enterprise selection, Manshen was named "2020 Zhongshan Quality Benchmark Enterprise". This is the second time Manshen has won the quality benchmark honor after winning the "National Smart Lock Industry Quality Leader" in 2018 and the "National Top 100 Quality Integrity Benchmark Enterprise" in 2019. Consumers have "zero tolerance" for smart lock quality issues. As an industry quality benchmark enterprise, how does Manshen build the "moat" of quality?
China Smart Lock Sharing Industry Platform (CSLP), which can provide customers with ODM, OEM, financial and technical support, and an open platform for supply chain sharing, providing industry customers with fully customized, one-stop smart lock services.
China Smart Lock Sharing Industry Platform (CSLP), which can provide customers with ODM, OEM, financial and technical support, and an open platform for supply chain sharing, providing industry customers with fully customized, one-stop smart lock services.
Manshen was founded in 2004 and is one of the earliest companies in China to enter the field of smart locks and smart homes. In 2014, Manshen adjusted its development strategy and fully entered the field of "single products" of smart door locks from the field of smart homes. Relying on the software and hardware technology advantages accumulated in the field of smart homes, Manshen has developed rapidly in the field of smart door locks and has launched a number of "explosive" products, triggering explosive development in the industry.
In 2015-2016, it received more than 10 million yuan in crowdfunding through Taobao crowdfunding for two consecutive years, becoming the veritable double champion in the field of Taobao crowdfunding smart locks. In 2017, it produced and delivered more than 5 million sets of smart locks for a shared bicycle brand, becoming the focus of the industry for a while. At the beginning of 2018, Manshen settled in Xiaolan and invested in the creation of the "China Smart Lock Sharing Industry Platform", which covers the entire industry chain service system from the appearance and structural design of smart lock products, software and hardware design, production and manufacturing, testing and inspection to installation and after-sales. Manshen's role as an "all-round player" is further highlighted.
From focusing on smart home to all in smart lock products
Speaking of Manshen, the general consumer does not have a strong brand awareness. As a manufacturer and solution provider of smart door locks, Manshen is particularly well-known in the industry. Looking at its product history, it can be roughly divided into three stages: "high-security mechanical lock-smart home-smart lock".
Manshen smart lock products.
Manshen's popularity in the industry also stems from its being one of the pioneers in promoting the development of the traditional lock industry in the direction of "smart". In 2004, it launched the industry's first "super B-level" lock cylinder in the door lock field; in 2008, it independently developed and built the industry's first fully automated lock cylinder production line, and launched the smart home project that year; in 2012, it launched the industry's first fully wireless smart home system tested by the Ministry of Public Security. In 2013, Manshen launched the first smart anti-theft door in China...
However, at that time, smart home was still in its infancy and the industry was still in a "melee" period. Manshen's efforts did not receive a positive response from the market, especially Manshen's whole-house wireless smart home system, which received a relatively cold market response. In the view of Zhang Baoqiang, the founder of Manshen, smart home is destined to fall into the dilemma of "popular but not popular" when the Internet of Things technology is not yet mature and its application is not yet highly popular.
Manshen, who is optimistic about the smart home market, did not give up. Facing the immature smart home market, in 2014, Manshen adjusted its thinking and turned from a large and comprehensive smart home system to the "single product" field of smart locks. "It's like running a restaurant. If you launch a full banquet at the beginning, either the high price will discourage customers, or the complicated dishes will make customers at a loss. It's better to focus on a signature dish to attract customers to patronize frequently. Over time, other dishes will naturally be on the diners' tables." Zhang Baoqiang said. Through adjustments, Manshen established a single product breakthrough model and decided to use rigid smart products to trigger customer purchase motivation, form customer awareness, establish customer stickiness, and then gradually introduce smart home systems.
This year, an important landmark event also occurred in the global smart home field, that is, Google acquired smart thermostat manufacturer Nest for US$3.2 billion. Google's huge acquisition of smart hardware companies has further strengthened Zhang Baoqiang's determination for strategic transformation. After sufficient industry research and combined with its own industry accumulation, Manshen finally selected the breakthrough point as the core rigid product as the entrance to the smart home - smart door locks. Since then, the Manshen team has started to go all in on the smart lock track.
Marketing transformation "explosive models" frequently appear
Smart door locks have been around for more than 20 years, but to this day, the market penetration rate of smart door locks in China is still less than 8%, and product awareness and market retention are not high.
In the context of consumer demand not being fully rejuvenated, Manshen also boldly explored innovations in marketing models while innovating technology. In 2014, the company launched the first cloud smart alarm lock cylinder connected to WeChat in China, which received a good market response due to its unique innovative functions. In 2015, it pioneered the online crowdfunding model and cooperated with Alibaba to launch the cloud smart alarm lock iLockA2. Through 45 days of crowdfunding, it achieved a sales amount of 15.1 million yuan, and sold more than 70,000 sets of smart locks online and offline, setting a global crowdfunding sales record for smart door locks. This is also regarded by the industry as a landmark event in the first year of the explosion of the smart lock industry. The event was included as a classic case in the book "Internet 3.0-Cloud Brain Internet of Things Creates a New World of DT" and was hailed as the "Manshen Phenomenon".
In 2016, Manshen continued to exert its strength and once again won wide recognition from users with an iLockA5 smart lock that was called "Apple-flavored" by the industry, and raised sales of 16.75 million yuan in 45 days. Became the double champion of smart lock crowdfunding.
Manshen used two crowdfunding campaigns to fully verify the strong market demand for smart locks, and the impressive transaction amount also swept away the doubts about whether the trend has arrived. Since then, at the end of 2017, more than 2,000 brands have entered the market, officially opening the "early spring" of China's smart door lock industry.
Seize the "trend" of shared bicycles and consolidate the supply chain and quality foundation
"Smart locks are a 'zero-tolerance' product. It takes months or even years from original research to mass production, and the biggest cost of investment is time cost. And in this process, it involves the linkage and cooperation of dozens of suppliers of various categories, including chips, modules, motor transmission, die-casting, injection molding, and sheet metal. But before 2016, as an emerging industry, the embarrassing situation of small batches, multiple varieties, rapid iteration, and few orders could not inspire the enthusiasm of the supply chain to cooperate, which is also the key bottleneck that plagues the development of the smart lock industry." Lu Qiang, deputy general manager and marketing director of Manshen, was deeply touched by the industry situation of smart locks before 2017. To achieve industry development, it is necessary to seek the coordination and cooperation of high-quality supply chain resources, but the only thing that inspires cooperation enthusiasm is orders, and massive orders.
Customers discuss product solutions with Manshen.
At the end of 2016, the outbreak of the shared bicycle trend provided Manshen with a rare opportunity to leap forward. At that time, a domestic shared bicycle brand was looking for a supplier of smart locks around the world. However, as a core component of shared bicycles, smart locks are no longer a simple traditional mechanical lock, but a smart lock that can interact with the cloud. As a new species, there are no mature products at home and abroad. Manshen, which has been deeply engaged in the two fields of locks and smart homes for many years, not only has a rich accumulation of mechanical transmission design, but also has a complete technical system from hardware, software to cloud protocol docking. It is an enterprise with a complete development system. These capabilities quickly won the recognition of the shared bicycle brand. The two parties hit it off and Manshen took over the latter's shared bicycle smart lock research and development and production supply tasks. Lu Qiang said that the annual order scale of 5 million quickly changed the original supply chain status. Hundreds of suppliers were united in their desire to achieve a breakthrough in production capacity from 5,000 to 50,000 per day within 45 days. R&D and engineering technologies from different industries such as mobile phones, automobiles, and communications worked together, and four rapid iterations were made within a year, and more than 600 test cases and product quality standards were compiled from scratch. As of the end of 2017, Manshen had delivered a total of 5.1 million sets of shared bicycle smart locks to customers, making Manshen the world's largest smart lock manufacturer.
Manshen Smart Lock Testing Center.
Zhang Baoqiang believes that the million-level R&D and manufacturing projects have brought three important transformations to Manshen. First, it has explored a unique new model of shared manufacturing, which effectively solved the problem of tidal fluctuations in production orders. Second, it has opened up the entire smart lock supply chain system and formed a mutual trust and win-win linkage cooperation relationship. Third, it has formed a complete quality control system. At present, Manshen's product test cases have exceeded more than 900, and the key single indicators of the enterprise standard are 30% higher than the national standard, becoming a benchmark reference for product quality testing in the smart lock industry. The improvement of these three capabilities has also laid a solid foundation for Manshen's transformation again.
Strategic transformation, exploring new models of shared manufacturing
At the end of 2017, relying on its own R&D system, supply chain resources and quality control system, Manshen empowered partners, helped the industry develop, and positioned itself as a "full-process service provider for smart locks".
In May 2018, the China Smart Lock Sharing Industry Platform (CSLP) invested and built by Manshen officially started operations in Xiaolan Town, Zhongshan City. The platform can provide customers with ODM, OEM, financial and technical support, and an open platform for supply chain sharing, providing industry customers with fully customized, one-stop smart lock services.
Manshen smart lock core components.
"As long as customers come with their needs, we can provide full-process services from appearance, structure, software and hardware design to production and manufacturing, quality inspection, and installation and after-sales." Lu Qiang said that Manshen has now linked hundreds of supply chain companies and has the ability to quickly respond to various small-batch, personalized flexible production needs. From product design to finished product delivery, the shortest time can be compressed to about 40 days. Based on the monthly shipment of 100,000 sets in 2020, Manshen has started the reconstruction of the intelligent factory. As of press time, the expansion work of 2 million sets of smart locks per year has also begun.
At present, Manshen serves more than 100 customers, mainly international and domestic first-line brands such as Siemens, Legrand, TCL, Bull, Midea, Hisense, Lenovo, etc.
A complete quality management system builds the "moat" of the enterprise
In order to strengthen product quality control, Manshen has built a smart lock testing center. Zhang Wei, quality director of Manshen, said that the center has more than 100 testing equipment involving safety regulations, environment, durability, electronics and other projects, covering more than 80 testing projects. Each smart lock must undergo various rigorous inspections and tests before it can be put into mass production. And each batch of products is sampled and regression tested to ensure that the products shipped meet national standards and customer quality requirements.
Manshen not only provides services for domestic customers, but also exports its products to the United States, Japan, the Netherlands and other countries. Although the needs of customers vary greatly, the requirements for product quality are consistently strict. In Manshen's service cases, some customers have submitted more than 3,000 quality documents for a product.
Manshen's development and quality control work have become a benchmark in the industry, attracting enterprises from various industries in various towns and districts in Zhongshan to visit and learn.
Facing customers from many regions with different tastes and standards, how does Manshen meet their needs? Zhang Wei explained that Manshen not only formulated corporate standards that are higher than national standards, but also compiled corresponding test cases and quality standards based on project requirements and R&D outlines, combined with customer quality requirements, when each project was established. In addition, the company has established a complete quality management system from incoming materials, production, warehousing, to transportation, and the ratio of Manshen production personnel to quality personnel is as high as 1:0.7. So no matter where it is sold, the product quality can be ensured to reassure customers.
"Quality is the lifeline of the product." Zhang Wei said that to do a good job in smart lock quality management, we must first maintain a "treading on thin ice" awe, secondly, we must be scientific, systematic, and normalized in quality management, and thirdly, we must maintain an open and grateful attitude and thank those customers who have promoted Manshen's growth. "It is precisely because of those first-line brand customers at home and abroad that they have brought the strict standards and high quality requirements of other mature industries, which forced us to grow and improve in learning, and also ensured that each set of smart locks was qualified before leaving the factory."
Source: Nanfang+
