Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jinbao


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Posted by Jim Andrada on November 22, 2002 at 22:36:49:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jinbao posted by Rick Denney on November 22, 2002 at 18:17:06:

I think Chinese quality can be as good as you're willing to make it. We manufacture a complex, ultra high precision, mechanical assembly (tolerances in the 5 micron range) in China, and the quality has our customers, who are pretty strict, absolutely amazed.

But it wasn't easy getting there. We started by working with a Chinese company with excellent credentials.

The product was engineered in Japan and we brought the first wave of Chinese workers to Northern Japan for several months for training, then dis-assembled the production line and shipped it to China where the team we had trained in Japan set it up with the help of several Japanese engineers. We've left several engineers more or less permanently on assignment in Hong Kong from where they can commute daily to Shenzhen. We also structured the work flow so that the work is absolutely standardized. Each work team does one thing and one thing only. We have a large number of supervisors on duty, continually monitoring the work flow. If quality and quantity objectives aren't met, the workers are penalized in the pocket and don't receive their bonuses that allow them to buy stuff at the company store.

Sort of a "the price of peace is eternal vigilance" system. It sounds grim, but most of the workers are pretty happy, working conditions are great, etc.

We wouldn't even try to send warranty returns from the field to China for diagnosis and repair - these items go to the factory in Japan where the workers are vastly better educated and flexible and able to handle "if A do B, else do C" kinds of situations. Trying to do this in China turned out to be a "disaster".

We're looking at another product now, but odds are we'll keep it in Japan as it has low volume (a thousand a month or so) and we can handle it with maybe 12 workers in Japan, compared to the 60 to 70 we'd have to use in China. Costs in China can get high quickly if you don't have big volumes to offset the additional people plus supervisors plus technical support staff you have to put in to make it work.

We also find that unless you deal only with the "cream of the crop" companies there's a tendency to substitute cheaper materials for the materials specified, bribery is rampant etc etc etc. Definitely a "buyer beware" environmnet.

And this in the high tech field - I shudder to think what it's like in the old state run factories.

Anyhow, based on all these experiences, I have no doubt that a company like Yamaha can manufacture in China and get only the highest quality imaginable, and that a local company proactically next door can produce absolute junk. It all comes down to how much effort and money you're willing to spend to make the products right.


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