The Kinman company was founded in Brisbane, Australia on the highest standards of quality, integrity and ethics and there is no way we would compromise our excellent reputation by outsourcing our manufacturing to OEM pickup manufacturers. Besides there are closely guarded secrets in Kinman pickups that we want to keep secret.
However Kinman products are highly complex and sophisticated with a high man-hour component in the cost of manufacture. We have always designed our products with more complexity than any other brand to achieve the best possible sonic performance without regard for manufacturing costs. However in recent years the dramatic increase of operating costs in Australia meant we could not continue operating because we felt not enough customers would pay the necessary increase in price as a result … and we did not want to sacrifice our legendary quality to that of competing American products. In 2006 we began setting up a wholly owned second Kinman factory in Philippines (we thought it better than China and beside English is spoken widely here). At first only our Goodbye-Soldering Harness were made here because they were the first product to become un-viable in Australia. But in January 2011 the Australian factory was devastated by the floods and stopped operating, now everything is made here. The floods simply bought forward the inevitable.
Our new factory is more than 3 times better than the Aussie one simply because the lower cost structures here in Philippines meant we could afford a larger, better more modern premises, more staff and better manufacturing equipment. We have 3 Australian managers who reside here including myself (Joe) and boss Chris Kinman, Australia had one highly overworked one. We couldn't afford more than a handful of overworked staff in Australia and making do with an inadequate premises and equipment, here we have 20 very diversely skilled staff (who are not overworked), better tooling and much better manufacturing equipment and methodology.
The stress of operating in Australia culminated in an almost fatal heart attack for Boss Chris Kinman who was forced to work for up to 80 hours a week. Here he works an almost normal 50 hour week and his reduced stress levels means he will live longer. That alone was worth the move to Philippines because here he developed 40 new products where was in Australia we had only 4.
The lower cost of manufacture also meant we could reduce the price of Kinman products, for example a Blues set from $495 to $385 (I am sure you are happy about that). Not only that but a substantial improvement in Quality also resulted. Because of lower operating costs we can devote more time and money into making our products better. Three examples are the Laser engraving on the bottom of the pickups, our new Kinman plastic box is a vast improvement over the higher cost American box we used in the past. Also our P-90 Hx with 206 parts and Impersonator 54 with 167 parts simply could not have been designed let alone be made in Australia. Because of their complexity and high number of components the cost would be far too high. Not only would these improvements and achievements have not been possible in Australia but the pressure was on to do the reverse and sacrifice quality and make less complex products with a corresponding downgraded sonic performance.
We trust our customers understand and support our quest in striving to improve quality of existing products and develop new ones, and be thankful that Kinman took the difficult decision to do all this and make our products more affordable at the same time.
You can have complete confidence when you order from Kinman because our products are engineered with excellence and enjoy a beyond excellent reputation among those who know. Also, we go to more trouble than any other Internet supplier in keeping our customers informed as to the status of their orders. And we usually ship within 5 ~ 6 working days from payment.
All the best from all of us here at Kinman in Philippines (Joe)