A-Wei runs a regional distributorship for a lubricant brand in a county-level city in Jiangsu. In his early years, his approach was to carry a product catalog to factories and pitch procurement staff, comparing prices drum by drum. Procurement always had a cheaper quote in hand, and his orders came hard. The turning point came from a maintenance supervisor at a machining factory: the man walked him through the shop floor, machining center by machining center, hydraulic station by hydraulic station, air compressor by air compressor, asking what oil each piece of equipment should use and how often it should be changed -- and by the end of the conversation, switched several of the factory's oils over to A-Wei's brand all at once. That was when he understood: lubricants have to be sold by equipment, you have to talk to people who understand the equipment, and your customer list has to be built factory by factory across your own territory.
The List First: 85,942 Factories with 50+ Insured Employees Across 8 Equipment-Heavy Industries
Industrial lubricant consumption tracks equipment: the more machine tools, injection-molding machines, hydraulic presses, reducers, and air compressors a factory has, and the longer they run, the more oil gets used. On Tianxia Gongchang, I picked 8 equipment-heavy manufacturing industries and pulled the active factories with 50+ insured employees in each:
| Industry | Factories with 50+ insured employees |
|---|---|
| Metal products, metal-processing machinery | 22,260 |
| General equipment | 21,913 |
| Special-purpose equipment | 18,674 |
| Plastics and rubber products | 14,811 |
| Auto parts | 11,744 |
| Metallurgy (steel, non-ferrous metals) | 7,311 |
| Textiles | 6,953 |
| Building materials (cement, glass, ceramics) | 4,008 |
A single factory can fall under two industries at once -- for example, a factory that makes metal-processing machinery also counts under general equipment -- so the industry totals add up to more than the overall count. After deduplication, the 8 industries together have 85,942 factories with 50+ insured employees; lowering the threshold to 20+ insured employees brings that to 182,672.
Subtract one from the other and factories with 20 to 49 insured employees come to 96,730 -- more than the number with 50 or more. These factories don't necessarily have less equipment; they simply don't have a dedicated equipment department, so which oil to use is often decided with a single word from the owner or the workshop supervisor. The deal chain is short, and this tier shouldn't be left out.
Matching Product Lines to Equipment: A Factory's Oil Order Is Derived from Its Equipment List
Distributors organize their product lines by oil type: hydraulic oil, gear oil, way (slideway) oil, cutting fluid, air-compressor oil. Factories think about the problem starting from equipment. Line the two up and you get the table below:
| Equipment | Primary oil used | Industries where this equipment is concentrated |
|---|---|---|
| Injection-molding machines, die-casting machines, hydraulic presses, bending machines | Hydraulic oil | Plastics and rubber products, metal products, auto parts |
| Reducers, grinding mills, rolling mills, conveying equipment | Gear oil | Metallurgy, building materials |
| Lathes, milling machines, grinders, machining centers | Way oil, cutting fluid | Metal products, general equipment, special-purpose equipment, auto parts |
| Screw air compressors | Air-compressor oil | Present in every industry; textiles, plastics, and machining use the most compressed air |
This table carries two implications for sales.
First, what a factory needs is usually a whole set of oils, not one. At an auto-parts machining factory, the machining centers need way oil and cutting fluid, the hydraulic fixtures and hydraulic stations need hydraulic oil, and there's an air compressor tucked in a corner of the shop floor that needs air-compressor oil. Pitch just one product and procurement will use it to comparison-shop item by item against the existing supplier; show up with a full oil-change plan organized by equipment, and you're negotiating the lubrication of the whole shop floor.
Second, the industry determines which samples to bring first. At a machining factory, lead with way oil and cutting fluid; at an injection-molding factory, lead with hydraulic oil; at a metallurgy or cement factory, lead with gear oil and hydraulic oil. Air-compressor oil is used across every industry and works well as the product that gets you in the door. Salespeople selling air compressors are working the same batch of factories -- for how to build that customer list, see this series' How to Find Factory Customers for Air Compressor and Compressed-Air Station Energy-Saving Retrofit Sales; forklifts on the factory floor also run on hydraulic oil and gear oil, see How to Find Factory Customers for Forklift and Warehouse Handling Equipment Sales.
Dividing Territory by County: The 15 Districts/Counties with the Densest Machining Factories
Lubricants are a consumable -- delivery, restocking, oil changes, and on-site oil checks all require legwork, and brands typically grant distributors territory by region. So the list needs to be broken down to the county level. Metallurgy and building-materials factories are few in number, so this county-level table looks only at the machining and equipment cluster: among metal products, general equipment, special-purpose equipment, and auto-parts factories (referred to below collectively as machining-type factories), the 15 districts/counties with the most factories with 20+ insured employees:
| District/county | Machining-type factories with 20+ insured employees |
|---|---|
| Dongguan, Guangdong | 5,564 |
| Kunshan, Suzhou, Jiangsu | 2,022 |
| Nanhai District, Foshan, Guangdong | 1,664 |
| Bao'an District, Shenzhen, Guangdong | 1,625 |
| Zhongshan, Guangdong | 1,580 |
| Wujin District, Changzhou, Jiangsu | 1,324 |
| Shunde District, Foshan, Guangdong | 1,295 |
| Jiangyin, Wuxi, Jiangsu | 1,196 |
| Yuhuan, Taizhou, Zhejiang | 1,101 |
| Huishan District, Wuxi, Jiangsu | 1,055 |
| Changshu, Suzhou, Jiangsu | 905 |
| Xinbei District, Changzhou, Jiangsu | 870 |
| Cixi, Ningbo, Zhejiang | 866 |
| Rui'an, Wenzhou, Zhejiang | 838 |
| Songjiang District, Shanghai | 821 |
Dongguan and Zhongshan have no districts or counties; the figures here are factories registered at the city level, slightly lower than the citywide totals. The 15 districts/counties add up to 22,726 factories: the 5 in Guangdong total 11,728, the 6 in Jiangsu total 7,372, the 3 in Zhejiang total 2,805, and the 1 in Shanghai has 821.
A few things worth noting:
- Dongguan alone has 5,564 -- more than 2.7 times the number-two spot, Kunshan. Selling lubricants in Dongguan, a single salesperson can't cover the whole city; you need to break it down further by town and industrial zone.
- Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou form a connected belt: Suzhou's Kunshan and Changshu together total 2,927; Wuxi's Jiangyin and Huishan together total 2,251; Changzhou's Wujin and Xinbei together total 2,194. These six districts/counties sit next to each other, so a single distributor's delivery radius can cover several of them at once.
- Foshan's Nanhai and Shunde together total 2,959, forming a connected Pearl River Delta zone together with Dongguan, Zhongshan, and Bao'an.
- Zhejiang's Yuhuan, Cixi, and Rui'an are all county-level cities that also make the top 15 -- a county-level distributor can build a whole business just holding down one county.
Zoomed out to the provincial level, among the 8 industries' factories with 50+ insured employees, Guangdong has 16,295, Jiangsu has 15,399, and Zhejiang has 13,741; the three provinces together account for 45,435, or 52.9%. Next come Shandong with 6,239 and Anhui with 3,405; the top ten provinces together account for 80%.
The People Who Understand Oil Are the Equipment Department and the Maintenance Supervisor
Procurement cares about the price per drum and how long the payment terms run. The equipment department and maintenance supervisor care about a different set of things: how often the oil gets changed, whether the hydraulic system has ever failed because of the oil, whether machine-tool ways have started to stick and crawl, whether the cutting fluid has gone rancid, whether the air compressor has built up carbon deposits or shut down from overheating. All of that lands on their desk.
The decision to switch oils also sits with the equipment department. Adopting a new oil means first trying it on a few machines and observing for a while; if the oil causes a problem and equipment goes down, the equipment department is the one held responsible, which is why they're the most cautious about switching and have the most say. Once the equipment department approves an oil, procurement generally just buys whatever the equipment department specifies.
The size of the factory changes who holds this role. Factories with 20 to 49 insured employees mostly don't have a dedicated equipment section -- the workshop supervisor or the owner personally handles equipment matters. Factories with a hundred-plus insured employees usually have an equipment department or a maintenance team, and switching oil goes through two steps: sign-off from the equipment department, then a purchase order from procurement. For how to find the person who raises the need and the person who makes the call inside a given factory, see Lesson 6 of the methodology series: Who Actually Makes the Call Inside a Factory -- Map the Decision Chain Before You Call.
When talking with the equipment department, it helps to have a copy of the national standard General Rules for Rational Lubrication Technology on hand. This standard was published in October 2009, took effect in May 2010, and was reconfirmed as still valid following a review in February 2021; it is administered by the National Technical Committee on Energy Basis and Management Standardization. Lubrication sits alongside energy management in this national standard -- talking to an equipment supervisor about "rational lubrication" and fewer equipment failures lands better than talking about how much cheaper you are per drum.
Four Things to Nail Down on the First Call
- What are the main types of equipment in the factory: how many machine tools, injection-molding machines, hydraulic presses, reducers, and air compressors. This question determines which oils you bring, and also which tier this factory's oil consumption falls into.
- What oil are they using now, and how often is it changed: get clear on the oil types, viscosity grades, and change intervals in use. If they can answer, you're talking to someone who knows the ropes; if they can't, it means this factory's lubrication management is still fairly loose -- offering to help them build an oil-change log is itself an opening.
- Who's in charge of lubrication: the equipment department, a maintenance team, or does the workshop just top up oil itself. Get the specific person's name and title so your next call can go straight to them.
- Has any new equipment arrived recently, or has any equipment had a lubrication-related failure: new equipment needs its first fill when it arrives, and old equipment that has failed needs its cause investigated -- these are the two moments when a factory is most willing to listen to an oil-change proposal.
Once you've asked all four, the factories on your list sort into three groups: ones you can send trial samples to right away, ones where you need to meet the equipment supervisor first, and ones with no plans to switch oil for now.
A Sequence You Can Run Right Away
- Draw your territory first: list out the districts/counties your brand has authorized you for, then screen on Tianxia Gongchang by region, industry, and insured headcount to see how many machining-type factories are in each. Taking Dongguan as an example, for metal products, general equipment, special-purpose equipment, and auto-parts factories with 50+ insured employees, screen this list directly; if you cover Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou, screen the same category of factories with 50+ insured employees across all three cities.
- Match samples to industry: bring way oil and cutting fluid to machining factories, hydraulic oil to injection-molding factories, gear oil to metallurgy and building-materials factories, and bring air-compressor oil to every factory.
- Route by industrial zone: schedule factories in the same town or the same industrial zone on the same day. Lubricants require repeated deliveries and on-site oil checks, so in a cluster of customers, one delivery run can hit several factories along the way.
- On the phone, ask for the equipment department first: whoever picks up -- receptionist or procurement -- open with "who handles equipment matters," get a name, then set up a time.
- Start with a trial: switch a few machines over to your oil, schedule a follow-up check, and let the change interval and equipment condition before and after the trial make your case.
You can also just ask Tianxia Gongchang's AI something like "Kunshan metal products, general equipment, special-purpose equipment, and auto-parts factories with 20+ insured employees," and it will break the conditions down into filters and list the factories.
How Many Factories Are in Your Territory -- and How Many Have You Reached
Lubricants are a repeat business -- once a factory switches to your oil, every future refill and oil change comes back to you, so every equipment-heavy factory in your territory is worth putting on the list.
One last question to leave you with: in the district or county you cover, how many machining-type factories with 20+ insured employees are there in total? How many have you already reached?
→ Screen metal products, general equipment, special-purpose equipment, and auto-parts factories with 50+ insured employees on Tianxia Gongchang ｜ → Get a Tianxia Gongchang membership
Published by the Tianxia Gongchang Research Institute. Data notes: factory counts are from Tianxia Gongchang, covering manufacturing factories with active status, as of September 2026; information on the publication, implementation, and review of the national standard General Rules for Rational Lubrication Technology is from the standard's detail page on the National Public Service Platform for Standards Information (2009 edition, reviewed February 2021).