About Northern Diver

In the early days, Northern Diver manufactured drysuits inside one small building in the UK, making sure that each part of the drysuit was accurate, using templates and assembling everything together by hand. Today Northern Diver is a global company, sourcing materials and expertise from around the world with distributors and retailers on every continent. Several other leading brand drysuits are also manufactured by Northern Diver. However, you might be surprised to learn that Northern Diver manufactured drysuits are still assembled by hand - only now incorporating 30 years of experience, the latest technology and materials plus exceptional quality control systems developed over three decades.

International

So how and where do we do it?

By the mid 1990’s Northern Diver had become an International company and manufacturing and shipping from the UK was manageable for our nearby customers but for the USA or Australia it was not so simple. With rising costs and issues with the quality of materials available in the UK, it made sense to look at other options. We weren’t alone. During our investigations into establishing our factories and research labs in other parts of the world we found we were brushing shoulders with other International companies looking into doing the same thing.

We established our manufacturing in China in 1996. We chose to base our offices in Hong Kong as this is the worldwide hub for trade and banking - we discovered we were also in the same estate as many international big brand names such as Nike. They had discovered the same economic realities as us.

Chinese law dictates you cannot own a factory outright so legally all manufacturers in China are required to have a Chinese partner.

This was not a problem because, in our opinion, the Chinese approach to manufacturing involved great expertise, attention to detail which we had not seen even in the UK, and an approach to efficiency and quality control which tallied perfectly with our own requirements. We knew immediately that we had done the right thing and our English staff based in China enjoy a very productive relationship with our Chinese staff.

We still have our UK offices and factory. We employ more staff than ever before with our product development team growing each year to work closely with our engineering and manufacturing departments. We often hear that products manufactured in China are merely part of a rebadging exercise - this is far from the reality, as we have proved.

Northern Diver has led the field for many years and a great deal of the products and everyday items which are taken for granted by divers were introduced by Northern Diver. For example, we introduced the diving world to made-to-measure drysuits, Thermacote linings, Metalux® undersuits, and neo-vulcanised heavy-duty boots. We have worked closely with partners to develop the now commonplace swivel-inflation valve found in most drysuits on the market.

We have permanent staff stationed in Hong Kong, mainland China and Europe. The process begins with meetings, sometimes using Internet hook-ups for virtual conferences, sometimes meeting at one of our offices or factories. New designs for new products, or improvements to existing products are always on the agenda and our team establish what is required and then begin work finding the best quality materials or even developing our own materials.

The design team look at improving all aspects of the drysuit with each new production run, meaning that seam placement, cutting patterns and techniques are scrutinised several times each year. Improved materials will be incorporated and tested to destruction. When the team is happy that the materials and designs are perfect, the production team becomes involved and the factory incorporates all the new aspects. Quality control closely monitors the entire production process and all suit testing.