From 2021 to the present, Mete Machinery has invested nearly 30 million yuan in digital upgrades. The picture shows the production workshop of Met Machinery. Huang Yanzi Photographed by
The leather surface of the sofa is fixed, the edge sealing of the cabinet is tightened... When you don’t realize it, the products of Guangdong Meite Machinery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Mete Machinery”) may be hidden in an invisible corner of your home.
As a leading enterprise in the domestic industrial-grade pneumatic nail gun industry, the nail guns and supporting consumables developed and produced by Met Machinery are widely used in furniture manufacturing, home decoration, construction, home appliances and other industries, such as well-known furniture manufacturing companies Mousse, Xilinmen, Oppein, etc., which are all its customers.
has gained a lot of money from the "world OEM" of pneumatic nail guns. It started with the market with the Japanese, American and European technical standards. After more than 20 years of development, it not only promoted the import substitution of domestic pneumatic nail guns, but also significantly reduced product prices under the same quality, but also "going overseas" in reverse. It exported products to 88 countries and regions, competing with international brands on the same stage to seize the market.
Written by: Huang Yanzi Ye Jiechun
technology breaks through and realizes import replacement
Enter "pneumatic nail gun" on Taobao APP, and a wide range of products are caught in your eyes. Among them, there are imported brands from Germany, Japan, the United States and other countries, but the vast majority are all kinds of domestic brands.
is hard to imagine. Before 2004, imported brands accounted for more than 90% of the domestic market. "Before 2004, there were no more than 6 manufacturers in the country that made pneumatic nail guns, and now they can't count them." Tang Jiechao, deputy general manager of Met Machinery, introduced that before 2004, Germany, the United States, Japan and other countries were at the forefront of the technology of this industry, and their products had an absolute advantage in China and were relatively expensive.
How to achieve import substitution in technology and quality of Chinese manufacturing was a common topic in the pneumatic nail gun industry at that time. This is also the original intention of the establishment of Met Machinery - to produce easy-to-use and inexpensive pneumatic nail gun products in the domestic market.
1996, Met Machinery started with a "mosquito nail gun" and moved into the manufacturing field from an import trade agent for pneumatic nail guns. Two years later, Met Machinery established its own R&D team, and the team leader was Met Machinery "digled" back from Taiwan.
"At that time, Taiwan was the 'world foundry' of the pneumatic nail gun industry." Tang Jiechao said that since its inception, Met Machinery had already clarified the goal of "replace imports with Chinese manufacturing." To achieve this, the most operational and cost-effective solution is to "stand on the shoulders of giants." Therefore, they target Taiwan, which has gathered world-class pneumatic nail gun companies.
After a long period of running-in and communication, Met Machinery successfully invited a technical director of the enterprise who manufactured a well-known Japanese pneumatic nail gun brand from Taiwan, and took him as the leader to form a R&D team, opening the technology path of introducing advanced foreign technologies and independent R&D innovation.
On this road, in addition to making efforts by itself, Met Machinery is also actively cooperating with universities, such as establishing an off-campus teaching internship base with South China University of Technology, signing a joint training graduate cooperation agreement with South China Agricultural University, and jointly developing impact-resistant high-performance rubber materials with Guangdong University of Technology, etc., to continuously attract talents and cultivate talents.
As of now, Met Machinery has 48 valid patents, including 4 invention patents and 37 utility model patents. Through continuous research and development, Met has developed 18 series and more than 300 products, becoming the company with the most complete product series and the widest application industry in the field of industrial-grade pneumatic nail guns. Its products are widely used in furniture manufacturing, home decoration, construction, packaging, home appliances, automobiles, handicrafts and animal husbandry industries.
wins the domestic market with international quality
According to a survey conducted by Shenzhen Zhongwei Zhiyan Consulting Co., Ltd., in 2021, Met Machinery's sales in China's pneumatic nail gun market ranked among the top three in the industry. Especially the industrial-grade pneumatic nail gun, the market share is leading.
"high cost-effectiveness and quality." Tang Jiechao summarized the reasons why Meite Machinery successfully achieved import substitution and captured the market. At Met Machinery, all products are benchmarked against world-class first-class brand products such as Europe, America, Japan, etc.
A set of internal test data shows that the pneumatic nail gun products produced by Met Machinery, which are used in the furniture manufacturing industry, can be continuously operated for more than 8 hours and stimulated for about 1 million times. The common domestic standard is between 50,000 and 300,000 times.
is not inferior to the performance of foreign first-tier brands, but the price is only one-quarter of that of first-tier brands with the same performance. The excellent quality and super high cost-effectiveness allow more domestic manufacturers that pursue quality and performance to choose Mete's products. Taking furniture manufacturing companies as an example, a number of well-known companies such as Xilinmen, Muss, and Oppein are all loyal users of Met Machinery.
An example that impressed Tang Jie was in 2009. Logistics and express delivery was not as developed as it is now. Two customers from East China and North China took a special flight, bought three nail guns each and took the plane back.
The road to quality is endless. In order to further improve product quality, Met Machinery established a digital operation center in 2021 to introduce and form a digital, intelligent and informatized talent team.
It should be noted that Met Machinery is one of the few enterprises in the industry that integrates R&D, production and sales, from the purchase of raw materials to the storage of finished products, more than 85% of the production processes are independently completed. In the production process alone, the production process includes loading and unloading, die casting, drilling, polishing, tooth punching, grinding, painting, etc. Among them, traditional non-intelligent equipment accounts for a large proportion, and most of the processing technology adopts semi-automatic or human-working methods, resulting in high labor costs, insufficient product quality stability, and high product rework rate.
From 2021 to the present, Met Machinery has invested nearly 30 million yuan to introduce digital and intelligent software management systems, as well as imported advanced equipment such as vertical machining center machines, CNC lathes, robots, etc., further improving the airtightness and durability of pneumatic tools, and effectively improving the stability and production efficiency of product quality.
brand "going overseas" aims at the global market
has become the leader in segmented industries in China. Met Machinery has begun to take the brand "going overseas" as its direction and goal and takes the pace of globalization.
In fact, since entering the manufacturing field in 1996, Met Machinery has already clarified the development path of import substitution and implemented a multi-brand strategy. Its brands include Met, Bente, Lubao, Jiebao, etc.
In 2002, Met Machinery had a strategic upgrade, adjusting its goal to use Met as the brand, building a domestic professional-level tool leader, and realizing the transformation from technology introduction to reverse "going overseas". It was also from that year that Mett merged its brands at that time and made every effort to export the "Mett" brand.
6 years later, in 2008, Met Machinery started the brand overseas stage. First capture countries with high demand, gain a foothold, and then conquer the markets of developed European and American countries. This is Met's globalization strategy.
"Product exports to 88 countries and regions, and export revenue accounts for 20% of the total revenue." Tang Jiechao introduced that as of now, Met Machinery has established a brand in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and other regions. The branch established in New York, USA has also entered its 8th year and mainly sells MET's own brand pneumatic nail guns. After competing with world-class brands for 8 years, the revenue of the US branch has increased by more than 5 times.
Today, "Meite" pneumatic tool products have become Guangdong's famous brand products, with more than 200 distributors in Guangdong, and more than 1,000 agents in other provinces and cities. They have also established self-operated stores online on Tmall, Taobao, JD and other e-commerce platforms, built a complete domestic sales network, and have outlets in Europe, America, Southeast Asia, South Africa and other places.
"At present, the domestic market for pneumatic nail guns is about 1 billion, and abroad is a larger market." Tang Jiechao said that in the future, Met Machinery will maintain the market position of the leading player in professional tools of pneumatic nail guns, base itself on the global market, closely combine with the characteristics of various industries, deeply explore customer applications and needs, and take "Met" own brand pneumatic nail guns as the core, and take spray guns, pneumatic tools, hand tools, pneumatic nails, screws and corresponding fasteners, accessories as the basic industrial structure, providing global customers with advanced, safe and high-quality products and tool solutions, and building a complete intelligent tool industry chain service brand.
■Observation eye
Ambition
To climb high and look far
Don’t want to be a general soldier, not a good soldier. Met Machinery is such an enterprise that is determined to be a "general". Its corporate development history of more than 20 years is an inspiring struggle history to set goals and achieve goals.
Met Machinery's first goal is to achieve import substitution with Chinese manufacturing. The founder of Met Machinery, who started out in the import trade of pneumatic nail guns, is well aware of the difficulties and opportunities of China's pneumatic nail gun industry: the dilemma is that before 2004, 90% of the domestic pneumatic nail gun market was monopolized by foreign brands. Several domestic pneumatic nail gun companies could not compete with foreign manufacturers in terms of quality and type, especially some patented products, which were firmly grasped by foreign companies. The procurement prices of downstream application companies were high and the costs could not be reduced.
This is a dilemma and an opportunity. If we can develop and produce products with the same quality as foreign brands, supplemented by price advantages and the rapid growth of domestic manufacturing, the market will be opened soon.
Another opportunity is that Guangdong is an important "gate" for products from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places to enter the mainland market. Hardware tools, including pneumatic nail guns, flow from Guangdong to all parts of the country. After setting the goal, Met Machinery relied on its understanding of this industry to set a breakthrough path of "technology introduction + independent research and development", and acted quickly to introduce R&D leaders from Japanese brand OEM factories, and cooperate with universities to "borrow the brain" for win-win results...
does not have a magnificent legendary story, but only has more than 20 years of R&D development and quality persistence. In year after year of meticulous cultivation, Met Machinery has achieved import substitution in the field of pneumatic nail guns and has become a leading enterprise in this sub-sector in China.
Now, Met Machinery is moving towards its second goal: the brand "going overseas". Obviously, what Met pursues is not only how large the export volume is, but also how well the brand's reputation is.
This will still be a long process, but I believe that luck will never be bad for a company that knows how to look up and look at the road and can work hard.
