About SRI
Silk Road International (SRI) is an international procurement and project management company that helps clients find the right factories in Asia and coordinates and supervises production, logistics and quality control. SRI is your on-the-ground eyes and ears in Asia.
Working with SRI is like having your own Branch Office in Asia.
SRI both buys completed components and oversees custom manufactured items for final assembly. We work in crafts, stitched goods, plastic molded products, wood and furniture, metal molding, printing and clothing. Almost all of our clients’ projects require significant domestic coordination (anywhere from 6-8 factories for a single project is typical) and extensive quality control.
SRI maintains an office in China (8 people), Thailand and the United States and we are registered in the US, China, Thailand and Hong Kong. In the last 6 years, SRI has assisted companies from Australia, the EU, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the US by working directly with hundreds of factories in China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
David Dayton is the owner and manager of SRI. David has nearly twenty years experience working in and with Asia and he leads SRI from our Shenzhen, China office. Before China, David was based in Bangkok, Thailand, and he was in Taiwan before that. David is a regular presenter for Global Sources’ New Buyer Training seminars in Shanghai and in Hong Kong. He has also spoken for Global Sources’ Supplier Education program. David has been published in Euro Biz magazine and other trade publications and on numerous sites online. He has also been interviewed by CBS Evening News, the BBC and by NPR on China related issues. David has a Master’s Degree in Southeast Asian Cultural Anthropology, focusing on Comparative Chinese and Thai Corporate Cultures and a BA in International Relations and East Asian History. David has worked as a consultant, manager, trainer and translator on both sides of the Pacific and he is fluent in both Thai and Mandarin.
SRI Services
Silk Road International offers a variety of services geared to meet your overseas needs. We have developed long-term relationships with numerous manufacturers, which are the key to our ability to provide extremely competitive pricing and the product quality expected by foreign consumers.
Product Management
Much of SRI’s work is for companies with original design projects who need an Asian manufacturing partner. Small and medium sized foreign companies have a long history of frustration and poor performance in Asia when trying to manage manufacturing projects on their own from overseas. A single trip to Asia costs thousands of dollars and usually cannot produce quality results from multiple factories in multiple countries. Significant language, cultural and technical barriers simply cannot be overcome in a 10-day trip, or worse, with emails and phone calls.
Because SRI is on the ground in Asia full-time, speaking with factories in their languages, we can save your company time and money. Our face-to-face meetings with factories improves communication, increases quality, lowers prices, speeds up the process, and eliminates surprises. It enables us to solve problems in hours, not days, eliminating miscommunications and delays that push projects over budget and over time.
There are tens of thousands of specialized factories within two hours of our China and Thailand offices and we consistently work with the best of these to ensure you get quality product at great prices. SRI’s connections and local expertise, coupled with huge production capacities and low-cost labor mean you will get your projects completed to spec, on time and on budget.
Factory Sourcing and Procurement
SRI is uniquely positioned to find and evaluate sources for your product. SRI can do for you in days what typically take foreign-based companies weeks or months to accomplish. Drop-in visits, emails and telephone calls just cannot do the trick. You can save precious time and money, and avoid the headaches of staffing your own office in Asia by working with SRI.
SRI can be your Branch Office in Asia. We speak face-to-face with suppliers in their language; we go to the factories to explain all details of a product, we control the quality of your product as it is being manufactured, we inspect your product before it ships, and we confirm container loading. Because SRI is in the factories, we can have highly detailed problem-solving sessions about product details before mistake becomes costly.
Other Asia Business Services
Our expertise goes beyond just project management and factory sourcing. Here some of the other services we have to offer:
Factory Audits and Qualified Factory Introductions
SRI provides detailed and qualified factory leads, guided industry tours and custom tailored Social Compliance and Factory Capacity Audits. Standard capacity and social compliance audits are $650, plus expenses. Customization for specific clients and products is available as well. Factory introduction services are billed on a per case basis.
Quality Assurance
SRI charges $300 per day, plus expenses for our own domestic (China and Thailand) QA representatives to visit a site and check inline production, final product or container loading. SRI’s international (Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia) representatives charge $350 per day plus expenses.
Contact SRI Today
SRI US Office
Phone: 801.542.9458 (rings in US & China)
eFax or voicemail: 801.303.7396
SRI China Office (samples, office visits, general correspondence)
2305 Bld. A, Huangdu Plaza,
Yintian Rd., Futian Dist.,
Shenzhen, Guangdong,
China, 518048
Phone: (86) 755.8825.0910/11
Fax: (86) 755.8825.0955