MDCP Sustainability: AMT's Shanghai Service Center

Successful MDCP Legacy Inspired Global AMT Commitment

The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) leveraged support from ITA’s Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP) to open the Shanghai Technology Center (STC). The STC allows U.S. firms to demonstrate their products’ capabilities. AMT members can also use the STC to establish parts and technical service capabilities in-country for their clients.

AMT’s STC is a premier example of how an engaged trade association can leverage a public-private partnership to help its members compete internationally. And the STC has inspired AMT technical and service initiatives in other parts of the world. These include Mexico, Brazil, and India.

The Key to Helping Small- to Medium-Size U.S. Firms Compete Globally in China

Large U.S. manufacturing-technology companies often have the means to get into a key foreign market and establish themselves. For most small- to medium-size enterprises (SMEs), the challenge is nearly insurmountable.

For its SME member companies, AMT provides the use of the STC showroom for training, technical seminars, and live demonstrations. This is not the only benefit for SMEs setting up at the STC. U.S. firms can warehouse machines in country without having to return them to the United States. The STC is located in a free trade zone. It is not until a company sells a demo machine that it has to pay import duties and taxes.

The STC also helps participating companies with field service. The firms can start by training an STC technician to service their machines. The STC can also advise participating U.S. firms on hiring their own technicians.

U.S. firms can also reserve STC office space short-term or long-term for local employees. The STC’s Market Access and Sales Service (MASS) allows firms to get market intelligence and qualified sales leads.

AMT Has Nudged Scores of U.S. Firms to Set Up Their Own Presence Abroad

The STC continues to be a great venue where U.S. firms can showcase their machines and other manufacturing-technology products. Perhaps a more significant measure of success is who is no longer warehousing parts and dispatching field service technicians from the STC. AMT’s policy of encouraging U.S. firms to get their own physical presence apart from the STC has been effective.

Scores of U.S. firms have “graduated” from the STC and established their own facilities for parts, service, and/or marketing, administration and final assembly. A lot of these firms with newly established in-country presence now do product demonstrations at their own facility.

Some continue to demo at the STC to take advantage of its location in a free trade zone. Most continue to take advantage of the many services STC continues to offer U.S. firms in China. The difference is that these firms are now much more independent and confident about successfully doing business abroad.