Emerged from more than 600 suppliers, how Leader Metal stands out in the high-end dishwasher market

As the economy develops and consumer demand upgrades, the dishwasher, a high-class home appliance, goes into more and more families. It’s however, little known that the dishwasher racks of several international famous appliance brands are provided by Zhongshan Leader Metal Industries Co LTD (“Leader Metal”).

There are a lot of knowledge and skills involved in making a dishwasher rack, though it seems simple and easy. The performance of the dishwasher highly depends on the durability of the racks, which are critical parts of the dishwasher.

Big home appliance brands such as Bosch Siemens Home Appliances (B/S/H/), Whirlpool, Midea, Haier all have very high standards on the quality of their dishwasher racks.

Quality level of less than 3000PPM (parts per million) defects, and no quality incident in batches…… With relentless pursue of continuous improvement and operational management efficiency, Leader Metal emerged from more than 600 domestic suppliers of B/S/H/ China and won the “Excellent Quality Award”, and remains as the exclusive dishwasher rack supplier for B/S/H/ China.

“The dishwasher market is growing at 50%+ for the last 2 years in China. Being a critical part of the supply chain, dishwasher racks business has a promising future. Leader Metal stands out from peers on process technology, customer profile and management experience. We will continue investing in the business and achieve economy of scale by revamping the current campus to a modern intelligent metal industrial park.” Says Mr. Wei Laijin, the Board Chairman of Guangdong LeadShow display products CO., LTD (the parent company of Leader Metal).

Workshop of the automatic rack welding production line

New Product Development Timeline 6-8 weeks; Provide excellent service to demanding customers

Leader Metal specialized in metal wire products and moved from Taiwan to Wuguishan Zhongshan Guangdong in 1989. As a pioneer to research, develop and manufacture nylon coated dishwasher racks in Asia, Leader Metal produced more than 30 million units of dishwasher racks without any batch quality incident in the past 20 years. Leader Metal has become a reliable supplier of major international and domestic dishwasher brands. “The key to be the leading supplier in this niche market is to offer unparalleled service to most demanding customers,” Says Mr. Sam Guo, Managing Director for Leader Metal.

When firstly entered the international market, Leader Metal met its challenges, particularly from customers who had extremely strict requirement of the product quality. Over the years, Leader Metal improved and keeps improving. “We measure the critical dimensions of the dishwasher racks with a 0.000001 mm inspection accuracy, many foreign customers require an over 99% quality pass rate, and the bar keeps on raising” Sam Guo said.

Besides quality, Leader Metal has been managing oversea transportation cost challenges, and involving in customers’ R&D process. Sam Guo shared that Leader Metal had worked with a US-based customer to tailor-make stackable dishwasher racks, which improved packaging and shipping efficiency by four times and achieved sizable savings.

At the end of 2021, Leader Metal received from a major customer of a batch of customization orders of dishwasher racks for Japanese market. The racks of these dishwashers are different in size and structure with the current model products. By closely communicating with customer and diligent tests, Leader Metal worked out a solution within one month and started batch production this March.

The staff on factory floor to explore the technical solution

“Leader Metal never isolates itself, but always aim to grow and meet challenges along with customers.” Said Wei Laijin. Leader Metal’s R&D team acts proactively and fits in the new product development process of the major foreign and domestic brands, in order to catch up with the customers’ response time. It needs only 6 to 8 weeks from confirming design to batch production.

For years, Leader Metal has been constantly improving quality management system, upgrading infrastructure. The rigid quality standard from export customers has helped push Leader Metal’s quality management capabilities and stability.

Leader Metal’s current quality level is at <3000PPM defects – thanks to the strong quality management capabilities, Leader Metal is able to secure more orders from both export and domestic customers, including a long-term agreement with B/S/H/ China and a large order from Midea.

Invisible champion set out again and aim at intelligent metal industrial park

In the intelligent metal workshop, workers are operating the automatic spot-welding machine for the dishwasher lower racks, replacing the former workload of five workers with one person. In another workshop the first-in-China Italian OMSA Nylon dipping line is running highly efficiently with double tracks, the temperature variation in the furnace is strictly controlled within 5 ℃, batches of dishwasher racks of thermostability and corrosion-resistant are produced.

There are plenty of companies in the metal industry to compete on price. In order to stand out in the competition, Leader Metal differs from and exceeds other companies by introducing and developing advanced equipment, adding value to customers via VAVE proposals etc.

Wei Laijin introduced that Leader Metal invested around 100 million CNY in equipment and spent around 4% of annual turnover on R&D. Leader Metal has become the only domestic manufacturer who has both the traditional fabrication technology and more modern technology in making dishwasher racks. Leader Metal is establishing dual modern industrial parks of 150,000 ㎡ in South China and East China.

Relying on the strong technical capabilities, Leader Metal’s growth rate of dishwasher racks still maintains at 20% to 30% even during the pandemic time, and has newly recruited more than 100 production workers in Q1 this year.

Seeing the market prospect of Leader Metal, in November 2020, the invisible champion of the display fixture industry – Guangdong LeadShow Display CO. LTD acquired Leader Metal. These two companies have their own advantages in the display fixture industry, serving retailers and consumer brands. LeadShow focuses more on the customized design and production of display fixtures for brands, while Leader Metal focuses more on the standardized production of supermarket shelves for retailers.

After the strong combination of the two companies, Wei Laijin revealed that under the “industrial reform” policy in Zhongshan, Leader Metal aims at carrying out a new evolution on the existing industrial land of 160 mu, to build an intelligent metal manufacturing industrial park mainly for metal wires, sheet metal and tubes, and strive to reach 2.5 billion CNY turnover in 5 years.

[Writing] Nan Fang Daily reporter Yang Huirong