Note: We do not disclose the names of clients. Trust is the building block of all our relationships. Our goal for this section is to provide you with a basic idea of how we work. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us to find out more on how we can best tailor a solution to fit your needs.

Hedging against Currency Fluctuations for Canadian Exporters
Challenge: The US Dollar has risen over 15% relative to the Canadian dollar since the beginning of 2003. This has quickly reduced the competitiveness of many Canadian producers who manufacture in Canada and sell much of their product in the US.
Solution: Riverstone is working with several manufacturers under cost pressure. Because many of our contracts are denoted in US Dollars, sourcing in China results in a natural hedge protecting against lower revenues for Canadian manufacturers while sometimes substantially reducing costs of production.

Controlling Quality
Challenge: One of our clients was sourcing large aluminum castings from China with the intention of doing finishing in the US because of tight turnaround requirements that required limited custom work. After finishing the items in the US, the client was finding problems in the material quality making it difficult for paint to adhere to the aluminum and with anodizing resulting in splotching.
Solution: Riverstone diagnosed the problem as being that the Chinese vendor was using a high percentage of recycled materials with impurities causing problems in finishing. Riverstone oversees each stage of the production including western trained engineers who understand North American specifications. Riverstone assisted our client to re-source their production at a lower cost while eliminating the material quality issue.

Reducing Shipping Costs
Challenge: Client currently sources in China from various vendors. Client has been only shipping partial container loads resulting in delays following additional security requirements entering the US and generally higher shipping costs.
Solution: Riverstone now works with client to consolidate and ship whole container loads while allowing the client to maintain and even improve its existing vendor relationships.

Developing Private Label Lines
Challenge: Distributors and wholesalers are interested in starting a value or low cost brand to complement their premium offerings but are not interested in investing in or managing manufacturing operations.
Solution: We are currently working with a few clients who are interested producing their own private label lines. Because of the existing distribution base, Riverstone offers the ideal solution because of rapid scalability of production including the capacity to produce lower initial production runs.

Reducing Cost of Short Runs
Challenge: One of our clients is a medium sized company using limited numbers of large custom precision castings with tight turnaround requirements. Domestic alternatives have been found to be costly.
Solution: Riverstone is working with this client to coordinate the receipt of drawings in Solidworks and AutoCAD resulting in more rapid turnaround times with savings of sourcing in China sufficiently high to justify shipping the castings by air (2-3 day delivery time).

Building in Product Complexity
Challenge: Our client is a premium manufacturer of trend sensitive goods (comprised of castings) in an industry where lower cost copies come quickly to market. This client has been exploring integrating extrusions and castings to produce products that are both unique and more difficult to copy.
Solution: Riverstone is coordinating manufacture of extrusions and castings while providing limited assembly work and ensuring that tolerance requirements are met.Riverstone coordinates production with over 25 local producers in China including its own fabrication, machining and assembly shops.