The EARBLOG

Kicked off at NAMM 2009, the BEHRINGER 20th Anniversary Celebration continued with a trip to China to visit BEHRINGER City; our manufacturing facility in Zhongshan. 2009 also marks the seventh anniversary of the factory as well as the Year of the Ox - Uli Behringer's birth sign; a triple treat! Our guests were members of the press, dealers and distributors from around the world, with every continent represented except for Antarctica; 90 guests and host in all!




Thursday:
After a very long 14 hour flight, we arrived in Hong Kong for a day spent collecting our guests from around the world. I spent the day in the company of Barry Cleveland from Guitar Player magazine and Tom Roalkvam from Broadcast Supply Worldwide. We toured Kowloon Park – a centerpiece of the city, with aviaries, gardens and sculpture parks. We were met at every turn with groups of school children so happy to see Westerners, seniors practicing Tai Chi, performing musicians and city workers enjoying refuge.

We continued down Nathan Road to the stunning waterfront and views of Victoria Harbor and Hong Kong Island. Lunch was enjoyed at the iconic Peninsula Hotel; a bastion of British imperialism from days past.

With our guests now assembled, we embarked on a dinner cruise around Victoria Harbor. Hong Kong puts on a spectacular light show every evening with lasers and searchlights sweeping across the sky from incredibly tall waterfront buildings. Many of these buildings had intricate colored light schemes emanating from them or projected onto them. The food was bountiful and the on-board band got the boat rocking.


Friday:
A morning high-speed ferry put us on our way to the mainland and our destination; Zhongshan. Through the mist and haze we could begin to glimpse the machine that is China. This is a country committed to manufacturing and commerce with a single-minded dedication.

Having cleared customs and entry to China, we were bussed to the elegant Hotel Shangri-La. It’s no easy task to shepherd 90 guests from around the world into a very foreign country. Ruby Fong, Global Administration Manager, had everything beautifully planned and all went smoothly.

An afternoon bus tour of Zhongshan took us to the hill-top monument to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China. From this vantage point we got a very good view of greater Zhongshan and its amazing transformation from farmland to manufacturing center. The economic downturn has put much of the recent development on hold, but we were soon to learn that there are many centers of activity and growth, not the least of which is BEHRINGER City.

Dinner that evening was up in the hills of Zhongshan. We were bussed to a Hakka roundhouse – a communal living facility converted to restaurant and resort – for an extraordinary outdoor meal. While we dined on local delicacies, we were treated to musical performances and ear-splitting firecrackers. After dessert a bonfire was lit, we danced, and enjoyed a spectacular fireworks display. Gotta say, BEHRINGER sure knows how to throw a party! It would be tough to top this, we thought. We were wrong.

Saturday:
Up early again for a 45 minute bus ride to BEHRINGER City. This was the focus of our trip and anticipation was high. The facility is expansive, with four-story manufacturing buildings, six-story residences, two restaurants, library, entertainment centers, clinic, sports courts etc. Put succinctly, the place is HUGE! But then it takes a big factory to make over 2,000,000 products a year! The grounds were impeccably clean and perfectly organized. Despite its size, BEHRINGER City felt very cozy and very much like a community.

We ran up and down countless sets of stairs to try and see all that was going on in this amazing factory. Our 2-hour tour took us from the very beginning of the manufacturing process – checking new parts coming in, to the very end – boxing finished goods. In between we observed nearly every technology required for manufacturing music products; wood cutting and shaping, paint and lacquer finishing, wood pulp grinding and speaker cone forming, surface-mount and through-hole circuit board assembly, electronics assembly, piano building, guitar stringing and tuning and on-and-on.

One observation: There is a great amount of automation in the factory BUT most processes are accomplished by hand and eye. This is important. When I talked to Uli, he clearly pointed out that it's the Company's philosophy to leave low-level repetitive tasks to machines, and use people to focus on value-adding jobs. Much energy is spent on training and educating people, promoting teamwork and ownership as well as focusing relentlessly on quality improvements. A dedicated, motivated worker cares a lot more about how and what they do than the latest model of the"Manufactron-3000" auto-assembly machine could ever do. BEHRINGER products are made by real, proud and smiling people.

And at all times testing, testing, testing. BEHRINGER has one of the best first-pass yields in the industry and now we know why. Every step of the manufacturing process is tested with the goal of not even having to test the final product. (That still happens, by the way.) Perhaps even more impressive is the implementation of flat screen monitors along the production line to instruct workers on their assembly steps. Any given production line can be updated or changed for a new product in an instant. This is a revolution that even factory neighbor Canon came to see!

Team spirit was evident throughout the factory. People were as pleased to see us as we were to meet them. Metrics were openly displayed and great pride taken in posting good numbers. Factory managers were our hosts and had a very nice dynamic with the employees as well as ourselves. Our tour concluded in a stunning showroom of BEHRINGER products and an inspiring talk by Uli Behringer about the values and future of the company. BEHRINGER is perfectly poised to prosper and even grow during this difficult economy.

So how do you top a visit to one of the most amazing factories in our industry? How about an intimate dinner with 3,000 employees? We had been told that we would be greeted by the assembled staff of BEHRINGER, and all seemed normal enough as our buses pulled up to the Zhongshan Convention Center. Even walking up the red carpet past the Chinese drum and cymbal ensemble and under the balloon arch was expected. Being met with three thousand screaming BEHRINGER employees in a massive hall with a 1/8th mile red carpet stroll to our VIP tables was quite another thing! Everyone had a camera or cell phone and wanted to get pictures, handshakes and hugs. It was staggering! And it was just the start of an extraordinary evening that I will never forget.

The centerpiece of the hall was a huge stage, lighting rig and stacked BEHRINGER sound system as well as three big video displays. Guests including local dignitaries were shown arriving on-screen and the din in the hall constantly rose in anticipation of the arrival of Uli Behringer and Michael Deeb. When they entered the venue it was pure pandemonium. The volume was amazing!

Speeches from the Deputy Mayor of Zhongshan, CEO Michael Deeb and Chairman Uli Behringer led off the evening. As the miles of food started to be delivered, a succession of entertainment began and lasted almost three hours. Chinese acrobats, hip-hop dance groups, rock bands, traditional ethnic dancers and Chinese face-changers took the stage in a dizzying display of talent. These were all BEHRINGER employees! They had been rehearsing for over six months to prepare for this evening and the quality of the performances, the pride of the performers and the reaction of their fellow workers in the audience was astounding. I heard that the Company wants to promote these artistic employees to perform and represent the Company all over China.

At one point in the evening a few of us decided to venture out into the audience to meet our hosts. We got mugged! Everyone wanted to take pictures, have pictures taken with us; I think I got a marriage proposal, though my Chinese is not that good.

The experience was overwhelming and drove home the point of how important all of our jobs are to support this amazing group of people; to make sure that the products they make get out into the world and into the hands of the eager customers. We did try to get down off of this high by gathering en-mass in the hotel bar later, with lots of handshakes and hugs. The people were still in awe and everyone said that they had never experienced anything like this before. Unfortunately many, myself included, had to get right to bed for a very early departure back home and another long flight.

Speaking for myself, this was an incredibly revealing and inspirational trip. I witnessed first-hand a company of truly great people. I saw processes in place to make great products and with a total dedication to quality. I saw a vision of a man brought to fruition in a most remarkable form and scale. I only hope that you can visit and experience this all for yourselves.

Scott