China's biggest manufacturing hub for home appliances, Cixi, is seeing a manufacturing innovation boom, thanks to its extensive supply chain and efficient production processes.
Cixi, the world's largest producer of irons and heaters, and one of China's first counties to surpass 100 billion yuan in GDP (about 14 billion U.S. dollars), is renowned for both its manufacturing and innovation capabilities, constantly delivering products with fresh designs, features, and styles.
Yueli, one of the world's largest hair dryer manufacturers, has found success in Cixi, with the small town in eastern China producing one fifth of the world's hair dryers.
A decade ago, the company was just one of many suppliers for top global brands, trailing in technology and relying heavily on external resources for research and development. Today, Yueli's independent research and development capabilities have gained global recognition.
"These are our partners. Our partners include those from Italy, Japan, France, the United States, the Netherlands, and beyond," said Li Lizhong, director of the marketing department at Zhejiang Yueli Electrical Corporation.
Yueli's success is deeply tied to Cixi's comprehensive supply chain. The company collaborates with over 300 specialized suppliers, each providing a specific component. One such example is Wanneng Electronics, which focuses exclusively on power cords.
"We've developed advanced automation equipment and refined our production, as we strive to perfect even the most average products," said Yu Chongwei, general manager at Cixi Wanneng Electronics Corporation.
Today, their power cords travel across the globe, embedded in tens of millions of home appliances made in Cixi.
From the power cord factory to the final product assembly line, factories in Cixi are within a 30-minute drive of each other, illustrating Cixi's "one-hour production circle." With nearly 10,000 supporting enterprises clustered within this radius, the town boasts a full supply chain that enables rapid product development and innovation.
Qingbao produces printed circuit boards, the hidden brain inside most electronic devices. By focusing on this small component, the company has managed to excel in a niche market.
"It only takes us about three hours to produce a sample after receiving a client's design," said Qian Xuneng, deputy manager of Cixi Qingbao Electronic Technology Corporation.
From one factory to the next, enterprises work in tandem. For big manufacturers, working with suppliers specialized in each niche field helps speed up the product development.
In 2022, Huayu's general manager, Xu Jiasheng, and his team identified a growing demand for higher-performance air fryers. Their research pinpointed airflow design as key to solving the problem of uneven heating that hampered many previous products. After testing dozens of sample products, they finally developed an optimized model. Thanks to Cixi's robust industrial chain, they efficiently scaled the solution into mass production.
"Whenever we needed to fine-tune product performance during testing, our upstream suppliers quickly provided optimized solutions, helping to shorten our development cycle," said Xu.
The newly developed air fryer quickly captured a significant share of the global market, boosting confidence in product innovation. At the same time, suppliers work relentlessly to keep pace with the fast-evolving demands of whole-machine manufacturers.
As one of Huayu's key suppliers, Drotel Electronics produces electrical control boards, the "command center" for appliances. During product testing, their engineers can be present at factories to assist with troubleshooting, ensuring smoother research and development processes.
Industry experts say that Cixi's highly integrated supply chain gives it a distinct advantage.
"In Cixi, manufacturers can source all necessary components within a five-kilometer radius. These parts may seem insignificant, but in other locations, manufacturers might find themselves with almost everything in place, except for one or two hard-to-source components. That doesn't happen here," said Huang Shuhua, vice chairman of the Cixi Council for Promotion of International Trade.
China's home appliance manufacturing hub Cixi develops robust supply chain
