A television can be used in any place in the world which can receive the television signal. However, it is not lucky for the solar water heaters. They are restrained by different kinds of conditions, such as the local sunshine condition, architecture customs and the using habit of the citizen and so on. It means that they have different demand for the technology, type, shape of the solar water heaters and so on. It is easy to produce thousands solar water heaters of the same kind, while it is a hard work to produce several hundred thousand of varied kinds in a production line. If the enterprise wants to meet these varied requirements simultaneously, the enterprise must possess flexible product production ability.

It will be the miracle if a company can meet the different demand of more than 70 countries in the world for solar water heaters simultaneously. However, Sunrain group realizes this miracle.

Flexible Technological Capability

Although China is the big country in the world in solar thermal usage, the products are only popular in the domestic market. Because the international market has different standards on the solar water heaters, if producing in small lot, it almost has little profit. It is difficult for China to promote solar water heaters to the international market. More companies make conclusion that at present the Chinese solar can not meet the world demand. Facing with the difficulty, Sunrain looks for the way to meet the global demand actively.

In 2004, Sunrain proclaimed that the products were exported to more than 20 countries. In 2006, the products were exported to more than 60 countries. In 2007, the export countries are up to 70. Only 4 years the products spread to seven countries.

How can Sunrain meet the global demand? Only this point should take much time for the craft brother to think about.

Through the deep investigation of Sunrain, the writer finds that they adopt a kind of advanced production method, that is, flexible production. This kind of method can realize the production of different kinds of products with the machine working continuously, and meet the different demands of more than 70 countries for the order amount and technological requirements.

The flexible production system is very popular in the modern manufacture industry. The characteristics of this system is to integrate the assistant design of computer, project and manufacture into a whole and to produce a small lot of products, the costs of which are the same as those products that are produced in big lot. Here the so-called “flexible” means the capability and characteristics to adapt the change, which is used to measure the difficulty from the production of one product to another kind of product. Flexible production can make quick reaction to the market demand. More important is that, use the costs as low as possible and working time as little as possible to finish the production transform.

Through the investigation, Sunrain finds that the difference between international and domestic market is that the former can be considered as the large scaled custom-built production of product, while the latter is large scaled production. In the large scaled production, the customers are positioned at the bottom of the value chain and they buy what the company can produce. However, in the large scaled custom-built production, the customers are positioned in the top of the value chain. The company produces according to the order instead of the prediction, and the custom-built speed gets faster.

In order to adapt to the large scaled custom-built production, Sunrain explores a whole set of design system, mould system, production system, payment system and service system. After receiving the order, the designers design the product according to the customers' demand, the production line re-debug and the stuff are ready immediately……

Meeting the different demands of different customers is to meet the technological requirements. Since 2002 Sunrain began to start up the talent strategy and attracted lots of excellent talents to join Sunrain. It also cooperated with foreign scientific research academy and solar companies. Every year it sends the technician abroad for further study. In 2006, Sunrain engaged Doctor Harding, Australian National Engineering Academy Scientist as the chief scientific consultant. Doctor Harding is honored as the father of film coating in the world. His joining makes Sunrain rank the top three in the global vacuum tube technology and transforms it into the productivity successfully. It produces different kinds of vacuum tube products to meet the demands of different countries. On the basis of it, Sunrain produces newly collectors that are suitable for Korea , European countries, North America, South America, Austria and Mid-east. Because of the mature technology, Sunrain solar water heaters can adapt to the different geography, climate and environment all over the world.