There’s Gold in Them Hills

My second observation occurred during a visit to China’s largest printing equipment manufacturer. The general manager of Beiren Manufacturing invited me to tour his facility outside Beijing. During the tour I queried him about a dedicated section on the plant floor where the workers were uniformed in lab coats and hard hats and appeared to be Japanese nationals. I was informed that this was a recent joint venture between Beiren and Mitsubishi Litho Press. I asked if he was aware of the destination of one of the presses that was near completion, and he told me it was headed to a printer in India. I further queried if he was aware of the job that the printer had planned for this press, and he replied it was to do label printing for a U.S. retailer. It struck me immediately that if there was ever a doubt that the U.S. printing and printing equipment industry was part of Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” it should be put to rest with this very real life example: a former state-run Chinese manufacturer in partnership with a Japanese technology company selling a press to an Indian printer that will be printing labels for a large U.S. retailer!