China is home to hundreds of thousands of factories capable of producing highly specialised, non-standard components. Yet many of these workshops remain out of reach for overseas buyers. Not because of quality concerns, but because they’re difficult to find.
They don’t advertise internationally. Few have digital catalogs or quoting tools. And while many are technically advanced, their visibility in the global sourcing ecosystem remains limited.
This disconnect isn’t new. But the tools to address it are. As procurement becomes more specification-driven, Haizol marketplace have focused on organising supplier data by technical capability, rather than by company size or brand, to help global buyers source with more precision.
The Scale Behind the Surface
Much of China’s manufacturing strength sits beyond what’s visible globally. While large firms get most of the attention, over four million small and mid-sized factories form the backbone of the country’s industrial output.
Collectively, they:
- Employ more than 80% of the industrial workforce
- Hold the majority of national manufacturing patents
- Produce 70-90% of the components used in machinery, electronics, and automotive sectors
Despite this, many of these factories remain confined to their original industries, lack digital profiles, and rarely collaborate beyond their immediate region. That limits their exposure and the world’s ability to access their capabilities.
In a recent conversation, Haizol’s CEO Sherry She Ying outlined three recurring patterns that prevent many qualified Chinese manufacturers from connecting with global demand.
1) Narrow Industry Focus
Most small factories in China focus on a single industry. For example: telecom, consumer electronics, or automotive, and rarely branch out. Even when their machinery and technical teams could support other sectors, they tend to stay within familiar territory.
2) Limited Collaboration Across Industrial Clusters
China’s manufacturing regions are densely packed with workshops, but few of them work together. Facilities with complementary capabilities often operate independently. This isolation makes it harder to take on larger, multi-step orders that require diverse capabilities.
3) Limited Online Visibility
Despite their technical know-how, many factories still rely on brokers or personal networks. They often lack updated online profiles or quoting systems, making it difficult for buyers to evaluate their capacity and fit. Without accessible, verified information, trust becomes harder to establish.
Taken together, these gaps leave a significant portion of China’s manufacturing base underutilised, especially for international buyers looking for flexible runs, niche parts, or specialty components.
Rethinking How Custom Parts Suppliers Are Found
For many engineers and procurement teams, the biggest hurdle isn’t whether a factory has the right machinery. It’s whether they can even find it. Supplier searches still rely heavily on referrals or directories that often overlook smaller workshops.
Haizol approaches this differently. Rather than surface factories by size or brand name, the platform maps real production capabilities, what equipment a factory runs, what product volume it can handle and other factors. Buyers upload their technical requirements, and Haizol filters thousands of options to highlight only those that match on process expertise and available capacity.
The goal isn’t just faster sourcing. It’s a smarter match. For buyers, that means discovering suppliers they’d otherwise miss. For manufacturers, especially those without global sales teams or online presence, it opens a new path to international orders based on merit, not marketing.
Building a More Connected Manufacturing Ecosystem
As supply chains evolve in response to digitisation, carbon reduction goals, and the push for regional flexibility, procurement strategies are shifting. The focus is moving away from centralised sourcing toward more distributed, responsive networks.
In this landscape, Haizol operates less like a traditional marketplace and more like digital infrastructure. It combines together the layers of custom manufacturing, supplier discovery, capability validation, capacity coordination into a single custom manufacturing system tailored to industrial parts.
This isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about access. When systems are in place to surface the right factory for the right job. Buyers, in turn, gain more options without adding complexity.
The competitiveness of any global sourcing strategy now depends less on legacy vendor lists and more on real-time access to distributed capacity. For China’s vast base of small and mid-sized factories in CNC machining, molding, casting, fabrication and others, digital platforms are becoming the link between local capability and global demand.
