Professional scissors workshop with multiple branded products in production

The OEM Question: When Two Brands Share a Factory

· by James Adams

Here is something the professional scissors industry rarely discusses openly: a significant number of branded scissors share manufacturing origins. Two pairs sitting in different packaging at different price points may have been forged, ground, and assembled in the same workshop. Understanding why — and whether it matters — requires a look at how scissors are actually made.

Seki’s Division-of-Labour System

Seki City’s scissor industry operates on a division-of-labour system known as bungyosei (分業制). Rather than a single factory handling every step, production is distributed across specialist workshops. One workshop forges blanks. Another grinds blades. A third handles heat treatment. Assembly and final sharpening may happen at yet another location.

This system developed over centuries of bladesmithing and persists because specialists produce better results at their particular stage than generalists. It also means that a new brand entering the market does not need to build a factory — they can commission each production step from established specialists.

OEM and White-Label Production

OEM production (相手先ブランド名製造, or aite-saki burando-mei seizou) is the formal term for manufacturing products that will be sold under another company’s brand. In the scissors industry, this ranges from fully contracted production — where a brand provides only a design and logo — to partial arrangements where a brand handles final finishing in-house but outsources forging and grinding.

White-label production goes further: identical scissors sold under multiple brand names with minimal differentiation beyond cosmetic finishing and packaging.

Is This a Problem?

Not inherently. Many respected brands use shared manufacturing infrastructure, and there is nothing wrong with leveraging specialist expertise. The issue arises when pricing does not reflect the actual manufacturing differences between products.

If Brand A and Brand B both commission forging and grinding from the same Seki workshop, what justifies a substantial price difference? Typically, the answer lies in the final stages: hand-sharpening quality, edge geometry specification, quality control tolerances, handle fitting, and after-sale service. These finishing steps can genuinely transform an identical blank into a superior or inferior tool.

What Buyers Should Ask

When evaluating a scissor brand, particularly newer or less established ones, consider asking:

  • Where are the scissors physically manufactured? “Designed in [country]” is not the same as “made in [country].”
  • Does the brand perform its own final sharpening and quality control, or is this also outsourced?
  • Can they specify the steel grade and hardness, or do they rely on vague terms like “Japanese steel”?

Shared manufacturing is a feature of how Seki’s industry works. It only becomes a consumer issue when it is obscured to justify pricing that does not reflect genuine differences in the finished product.