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Rough Guide to Outsourcing In China
zentec writes, "An article in Design News chronicles WiLife's outsourcing project to China (they make consumer surveillance cameras). It's a tale of a language barrier, misplaced EEPROMS, backyard engineering, incorrectly assembled parts, sloppy engineering, and flaring tempers. That, and an initial defect rate of nearly 80%." In the end WiLife seemed happy enough with their outsourced manufacturing. This is a nitty-gritty account of life under globalization.
In the end WiLife seemed happy enough with their outsourced manufacturing.
The key word: "happy enough". Meaning, not entirely happy, but they saved enough money that it doesn't matter if everything was stellar. It doesn't matter if the products have an operational life of 13 months. As long as they chug along for a while, and break outside of warranty.
I'll keep paying a premium for german engineered and manufactured goods, thanks.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
We test stuff from China. Most of it we don't buy because the quality isn't there. It isn't that much cheaper than the stuff that comes from Taiwan. The Korean stuff isn't bad, better than China, but is hit and miss sometimes. Doing business with China is hard because you really can't return stuff to them. Some of the more advanced companies have "depots" in Hong Kong, but not many yet. Look at Japan 30 years ago, or Taiwan/Korea 10 to 15 years ago, and they were in the same state that China is in now. Today, Japanese product comes at a premium, and is superior to most product (IMHO) that is manufactured here in North America (vehicles immediately spring to mind). Once the Chinese people get their head around the different methodology of doing business in North America, they will come in full force and North America will have some serious issues to deal with.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
With the apparent lack of quality control, seems that the job has to always be monitored. With all the extra time, you might as well send the work to a country that is a bit closer to the US/Western EU and get the job done right the first time. While worker-friendly countries also make mistakes; there is a better chance of getting it right with well-paid, US/Western EU workers than some country that treats its own Rust Belt worse than anything you would see done to the Appalachians or steel workers.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This reminds me of a hand-generated flashlight we purchased this summer. The brand was the same as every other shake-and-get-light flashlight I had seen, but they had recently moved production to China. Sure enough, I couldn't get the flashlight to work when I needed it. Come daylight, I took a close look at the clear plastic case. Sure enough, the uninsulated wires on the coil that the permanent magnet passed through, were twisted together. The flashlight was completely sealed- no way to repair it except to take it back for exchange.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
When it comes to quality they know what they're doing, the management understand the value of getting it right. Of course by that I mean Japanese companies, rather than specifically japanese workers.
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http://www.reliabilityindex.co.uk/tophundred.html
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as long as Germany's Jews made cheap lamp shades for America, free trade apologists would be in favor of letting the Nazi's own all our debt and our jobs.
What with China's political purges (50 million dead there), harvesting of political prisoners (millions dead there) for body parts, the citizens slaughtering their baby girls (200 million dead there), China is in every POSSIBLE way worse than Nazi Germany.
Welcome to the world of globalism and free trade: for America to compete, we need to go back to the days of sweat shops, factories falling apart, workers being chopped to death by faulty machinery, superpollution, and collapsing mines...er, wait a minute...
Oh and before you neo cons say it, no, there isn't a new thing for misplaced workers to retrain for. Biotech is going offshore. Alternative energy is just going to replace traditional energy jobs. We're not going into a new era of explosive job growth - except, oh maybe the tourism, cashier, waiter and janitor industry. Got belhop hat?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
>> It's a tale of a language barrier, misplaced EEPROMS, backyard engineering, incorrectly assembled parts, sloppy engineering, and flaring tempers. That, and an initial defect rate of nearly 80%."
That sums up manufacturing in the USA, so what problems did they have in China?
With all the extra time, you might as well send the work to a country that is a bit closer to the US/Western EU and get the job done right the first time. While worker-friendly countries also make mistakes; there is a better chance of getting it right with well-paid, US/Western EU workers than some country that treats its own Rust Belt worse than anything you would see done to the Appalachians or steel workers.
I'm a bit befuddled by your reply, considering your sig. Without knowing the marginal cost of a move to a country with higher skilled workers would be, it is impossible to make any kind of judgement. Perhaps it is still significantly cheaper to stay in China, manufacturing problems notwithstanding. In fact, I'd wager that it is, otherwise they would already have beat a hasty retreat.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
Having worked with many people from the area of Taiwan/China in engineering, I have found that many of them don't understand the concept of craftsmanship and maintainability. They're still building crap. I've talked to people who have worked with engineers from the former Soviet Bloc who are the same way. At a company I worked for, a Russian hardware engineering manager bought basically black market Broadcom ethernet PHYs which had some bad bugs. Broadcom also refused to support us because the chips were supposed to have been destroyed. I think Communism killed the concept of quality in these countries.
Yes, it's true, an engineer in China is typically much less productive than an engineer in the united states. After all, you often get what you pay for. However, I really think all these anti globalization types need to take an econ 101 class. There are problems with what is happening now, but I think the world needs to figure out some way to get along, and protectionism really isn't the answer. Don't people in other countries have just as much right to a job as people in rich countries? I think they do. If companies were somehow penalized for "outsourcing" jobs (or, in other words, giving the job to the guy who they *think* can do it best and cheapest), it would be adding unneeded bloat and cost to products. The consumer ends up paying in the end and weak firms are allowed to continue operating. I'm sorry, but engineers (and all kinds of other white collar & blue collar jobs) are just not as valuable as they used to be to the market place because there are countries like india and china that are willing to do it much cheaper. But seriously, everybody talks about equality in the world and freedom until other countries are allowed to compete with you for your job, and then you're all about giving unfair advantages to rich, fat countries. A bit hipocritical i think.
I remember my first encounter with Chinese manufacturing.
:)
The factory had pictures of their product in their brochures. I was about to place a sample order when I noticed a picture of the product being made on their production line. It looked NOTHING like the one in their brochure. Closer inspection revealed that their product brochure consisted of products made by reputable manufacturers but with the brand names edited out (quite poorly). Shame on me for not spotting something so obvious before.
Their actual products - a poor quality copy.
Of course, that is my experience as a sample of one out of one. Hardly representative, I know, but kinda representative of TFA.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
The third shift is slang for when the CM continues to manufacture more of your product without being asked about it. The goal, of course, is to shunt this product to a separate market and undercut your production (after all, they don't have marketing, R&D, etc to pay for). Since these CMs often handle inventory for you, they can order extra parts without you knowing.
Or they take your design, modify it, and manufacture their own (possibly inferior) version. They have everything they need - board layouts (schematic can be derived), binary object code (for FPGAs, flash memory, etc), parts lists, etc.
Just a hazard of outsourced production.
We experience the same kind of issue with our foreign employees (consultants):
* Not very hard workers
* Always on a leave
* Snack and coffee every 30 minutes
* Think they know better than you
* Surf and chat most of the time rather than to improve their competency in the offering
* Request business class for a 8 hours flight because else this is too painful
* Most extended expense sheet you can imagine
By the way we are a German software company with an office in the US....
Perhaps we need a campaign like "Look for the Union Label"...
From what I've seen, products engineered 100% in the US should have significantly better quality, why not point that out?
I'm not really against Chinese outsourcing, but if there IS a quality difference in the end product, then that information could be vital to consumers.
Not that we have the best engineering consistently, but I've never seen a product made in the US released with such poor quality as some of the imports I've seen.
That means, a lot of college degreed CIS/CS/MIS grads who are working at Wal Mart or other lower paying jobs because their degrees that they got after 1995, with tons of student loan debt, are worth little if anything because of offshoring.
Let me repeat: they have jobs, ergo they're not unemployed. But they have jobs that are different, and far, far lower paying, than what they were trained for. Which is why the middle class is shrinking. But don't believe me. Read this. http://www.factcheck.org/article249.html
BTW the United States goes by a U3 style of unemployment measurement which puts us at 4.7%; if we go by Europe's U6 standard, the BLS says we're closer to the 9% level. That is very close to Europe's horrible unemployment rate which you hear so much about on Fox News.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I should not reply to cowards but....
Is that really how you think? That the only measure of gain and loss is by examining each one of your interactions in isolation?
Anyway to answer your question...
Yes he won. I shopped there, his profits increased, my spendable income decreased, the money I could have earned in interest by saving that money decreased, the money I could have made by investing that money decreased.
He won, I lost. I lose everytime I pay interest, I win every time I make interest.
evil is as evil does
I was in China for a training in Guangzhou and i wish to add/differ the following:
1. Hotels and restaurents are not that clean. McDonalds fries are the closest thing you get to clean cooked food. They prefer to just dump living animals in boiling water enough to kill them, not cook. This approach is not to our liking. And it smells horrible.
Hotels are aquariums, and you can see the waiter move to the next table with a live Lobster, put it in boiling water for a few seconds to kill it and then server it. The diners would cut up this live lobster while its writhing trying to escape and eat it off.
Enough to make you and me throw up.
2. Take enough ready-cooked food with you (Batchelor soup packets, noodles), etc.
Chinese food is NOT chinese take-away in US. You would be surprised at what they eat.
3. Take some mandarin language visiting cards of your Hotel address for Taxi. Taxi drivers can't speak or understand English and if you show the Mandarin card they will drop you exactly at Hotel. Else be prepared to spend about US$50 on taxi wandering alone.
4. USD is NOT universal currency here. RMB is their national currency, and they don;t accept USD at all sundry shops. Don't expect the Hotel to change your USD.
5. Banks do change USD to RMB but be prepared have official delays, lunch, etc., Be prepared to spend atleast 2 hours in changing money. If you are flying through HK, please change USD to RMB in HK itself. Saves lot of trouble.
6. Carry your passport ALL along. Be prepared to answer Police queries at any time. Address the cop respectfully unlike here. Loss of face is very important here and if you abuse or insult the cop, be prepared to have a very hard time. OTOH be respectful and bow as you hand over your passport, you can expect a quick wave over. Its not just arrogance, its their culture. You can argue respectfully, without being angry. If still having problems, ask for written orders from his superior. That will stop them in their tracks like anything.
7. Hand over cash/visiting cards with BOTH hands. This signifies respect. Expect the same.
8. Make sure your contact there is a high-ranking official who has subordinates reporting to him. That way you can be sure he would assign some subordinates to "guide" you around. These people are your only friends in China.
They would buy you lunch and dinner as they would be instructed. Do Not stop them and offer to pay as its an insult.
9. Bargain at electronic shops a lot and visit malls WITH a Mandarin-speaking local.
10. Do NOT think it is easier to rent and drive a car in China. Roads and highways in Guangzhou are very broad and much better than here, BUT the similarity ends there. The drivers are horrible and buses/trams/cars go at 60 mph inside city lanes. If you have the mentality of Genghis Khan, you can drive your own car.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Let's be VERY clear here: the ONLY reason globalization and outsourcing is expanding is because LABOR costs in India and China are significantly lower. If we only paid our people $1,200 / year like they do in China, then we would blow the chineese away. Product quality of outsourced manufacturing is also typically lower mainly due to the huge turnover rate in chineese companies - they have increasing competition for qualified workers and pay bottom dollar for them.
The FACT is that US productivity continues to rise due to the FACT that people are working harder, longer, and developing new business systems and technologies. Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site for the data.