Possible to get around this late binding?

[nemaroller]

I have a class which holds a collection of objects defined by another class.

The collection class is ManufacturerCollection

The object class is Manufacturer

In the ManufacturerCollection class... I am trying to get around late-binding this method, but don't see a way how:

Public Function GetManufName(ByVal index As Integer) As String
 
        Return InnerList.Item(index).Name
 
End Function

This function returns the name of the manufacturer object listed at that index inside the ManufacturerCollection object.

I can get it to work with Option Strict Off, but with it on, I get a late-bounding warning... I would prefer not to do late-binding, but I'm not sure if its even possible to get around it.