China CM?

We too have had our bumps. But they got a lot better after we went over and found an engineer to work for us and we use that engineer to bird dog our products, do quality audits, and find us better suppliers when things go badly.

We have the engineer over here about twice a year to meet our engineering people, purchasing people and get a better understanding of us.

Having someone on OUR payroll, looking out for what we exect from out China suppliers has solved the communication, lack of understanding and hand holding.

When ever we have a conference call with a suppler, our engineer is on the line. (And yes, sometimes I stop and say "Hey Cho, explain what I'm trying to say." and we wait for there conversation to end and Cho comes starts speaking english again tells me that the supplier now understands...

try that?

When I've had problems with equipment from the PRC, I've driven the point home with a twist on a old Chinese curse/insult.

"I'm living in interesting times as it is, and without your help and effort, they promise to become much more of the same."

The ironic humor of the comment is not lost on them, and all efforts to remedy the problems are redoubled, at the very least!

Allen

I gave you a GA. You earned it.

I have never seen such a good post on the subject on a blog in CR4, well done and very, very true. interesting to see the problems from the inside looking out.

I am not sure that your (original) fellow country men will like what you are doing for China now (training them up), when in 20 years time or less, when China really will come on stream with quality products from many sources......and US people are out of work.....this is almost like Japan after WWII and that is a tiny country in comparison to both the USA & China.....

Doing business with China today is like walking through a minefield without a metal detector.......you are luck to have both feet still whole at the end of the walk!!!!

I agree with you Sir

In the past I worked several times with Chinese companies

My last trip was in July 2007 to Suhzou

at this time I was working with European company that had a subsidiary in China

I think ,it's necessary to understand culture,behavior and mentality

there are some differences between North American mentality and European

there are major differences between European and Asian cultures

I say Asian voluntarily

In 2005 I stayed one month in a Canadian university with Asians from different countries (China ,Japan ,Korea, Taiwan,Thailand ,etc)

My first observation was "Asians never say NO"because they don't want to displease to their interlocutors and they don't want to lose the face

if you have technicals problems or other ,approach and solving problems are different than in Europe and I suppose than in North America too.

best regard

It seems that you've been quite successful here with your operation in China, to some extend, you should get nothing to complain about (IF I'd called it as a "complaint").

The cultural thing is absolutely an important issue I believe. It's true that we Chinese have our own point of view comparing with most of Westerners. Think about the people here with more than 5000+ years history, and the changes have happened all the time, but it will never happen over night...

Because of this (slow changes), we have to face it. For the most part, you (we) have to be humble facing this LONG history people. As long as you keep playing the game (doing business) here, we've to live with it, and probably have a "mind-set" change for this.

It's really good to see you have had the right way to live / work here, and you'll continue to be successful to continue the way you're doing now.

Cheers!

Thanks to you (and all the rest who responded) for your help.

Just to touch on your point (3) above:

We're learning this the hard way and I think it's the primary area we need to work on. We feel we've documented thoroughly and in some cases have even handed over working production samples. The problem is we tend to walk away at that point and expect a near-perfect prototype to be delivered to us 6 weeks later.

Instead our CMs tend to deliver us completly different components and/or designs. When called on such changes they usually respond with "we can't get part X here!", despite us having provided the manufacturer's / distributor's local contact info, etc. Time and again we've contacted part x's manufacturer and they demonstrate that availbility isn't an issue. I often wonder if this is just a general reluctance for a CM to learn / use a new item. Or some deep-rooted cultural mania to purchase the lowest-cost item no matter what. Or perhaps cronyism for a cousin down the street who only sells part Y. Or...?

As for the design changes, I'm willing to accept some flexibility due to a company's abilities or legitimate availabilty issues or even a more clever or cheaper way of doing something. But often designs come back that don't remotely perform as required. I don't mean barely failing to meet some trivial spec. Rather we see functional features omitted, designs that quickly fail under normal-use conditions, customer inputs which don't respond, etc. Things that couldn't possibly have been overlooked during development. Inexplicable.

Sadly, we seem to be afraid to hold their feet to the fire on the above for fear they'll walk away entirely from the project (we have had this happen in the past), causing us to start from scratch with another CM and wreck our delivery dates.

Hi,

There are some procurement issues that we all face here, that are completely foreign (no pun intended) to the western world.

First, not all manufacturers are licensed to sell within China. I may have a manufacturer next door to me with exactly the commodity I need, but if they are not licensed to sell here, their only choice is to import the item. I know it sound crazy, but such can happen. IF they have the ability to generate the proper paperwork, that supplier CAN work through your vendor and STILL show as an export if there is a proper paper trail. Not every one can (or is willing to do this) because possibly (1) they are not completely 'above board', and creating such a paper trail will raise them above the 'radar', or (2) they just don't have the logistics / tax / ability to do so. There is, however, as you say, the possibility of just a 'try' at getting a cheaper part to profit a little more. (happens a lot IF they didn't consider the correct part in their original quote to you).

Sadly, it doesn't always happen with the 'small' shops, but sometimes the 'bigger', 'more reputable' shops also. One of our largest vendors 'used to' often receive our drawings, quote tooling, create the tooling, die-cast parts, and when we received the first tool-offs, they were remarkably different from our drawings. Their excuse then was, "well, we thought this idea was 'better'". They've since stopped that tactic, but later they, after committing to a certain finish, in this case paint, were delivering such poor quality that we were forced to put our staff in their shop FULL TIME doing inspection at the source until the problem was corrected. In that case, it turned out that they committed to a painting process for which they had not yet set up their paint line, and, unknown to us, were outsourcing the painting.

As a manufacturer, as I have said before, we surely have our share of problems and areas in need of improvement, but the largest issue for us (and possibly for your current CM) is our (their) supply chain. AND, like you have said, there have been times when one of our suppliers simply 'threw in the towel', and gave up. A bad situation when you are counting on delivery of something.

Many of our clients have come to us because they have had some bad experiences at their current vendor, and need to improve their vendor situation. Maybe it is time for your company to consider the same. I would do this in parallel with your current effort, BUT don't plan on it being a secret. In any given industry, even among 1.8 billion people (depending on whose census you count), there are no secrets. (generally we know everything that our competitors are doing, and I'm sure they know everything about us).

One strong point to you and your company: How much time do you spend in China? I can almost guarantee you, you can't do this or any operation by 'remote control'. Nearly all of our clients are here 4 to 6 times per year, visiting all their vendors. One man I met (not my client, and not in my industry) travels to Asia every month, to visit his vendors. I communicates with them almost daily, and they know his arrival schedule, so they are intent on having things 'ready' when he arrives. For him, he said it is necessary, and it works. Bottom line: You or someone knowledgeable from your company must be at your vendor on a regular basis. "The Squeaking Wheel Gets the Grease".

[I hope you will consider joining CR4 ... there is a lot if information (mixed with some nonsense) shared, and it would be nice to know you as more than 'GUEST' ]

I handle the outsourcing needs for the company I work for. One of my suppliers is Fastenal, who has some of their work done in China. They've been trying to get me to go into a consignment agreement with some of the parts we use if they can get a better price for them from China.

I've heard a lot of bad stories about the quality of products coming out of China that I looked into it a little further. I've read where the Chinese manufacturers are well aware of the differences and are hiring consultants to help them bring their companies up to par the same quality standards as U.S. Manufactures so that they can meet the demands placed on them by their outside customers.

They want the outside business are are being proactive in doing something about it.

Japan was in this same situation Post WWII and took steps to raise their status to above being second rate manufacturers and look how that worked for them.

Well well, all good points discussed above. But - is your China CM a Chinese or an American? Actually you should have full reason to select a local Chinese being your CM now.

I understand there could have some "Trust Building" concern out there, but it's never a problem for you to have a probationership and this change may happen after half a year or something like that...

Just a point FYR of my own being a local Chinese.

I retired from a company in Mumbai India mfg. material handling equipments.We had joint venture with German company. Also we had retained on German Engineer for period of 10 years to improve quality of our products,watch the mfg. activities and to develop new products for local customers.

Initially our German Engineer had tough time in changing the methods of working and culture in shop floor but finally everything got settled down.To-day our company is leading mfr.in India for material handling equipments. Since last 10 years company entered in contract for mfg. products for British firm with their brand name. Britishers did not have difficulties in technology transfer or quality control as language was not a problem. Also initially our Engineers from Shop Floor and Design Dept. visited U.K to study mfg. process,material required,and tooling etc. Engineers from U.K visited our factory to ensure our capabilities. Since past 10 years things have been working out smoothly.

Conclusion is that only entering into contract will not be sufficient for getting goods mfd. in other countries. Lot of interaction and regular visits by both parties are required to get product mfd. of same standard and quality as of parent company.

Suresh Sharma