The Changing Face of NZ Business

cadman:

tdgeek:

cadman:

Geektastic:

We all know the Chinese CAN build very good stuff - look no further than Apple.

Only when the customer watches like a hawk closely monitoring every step of the production process. They will be constantly fighting to prevent the shortcuts they will take if they think for one second they might get away with it.

As in the Monday or Friday car assembly when it was done here? Id challenge that a kiwi making something will take less care than as asian, its a culture thing, and an overall observation that wont apply to every kiwi or every asian or any particular human

No. That was largely down to people not being available to do the job they're trained for (taking Friday sickies for a long weekend or Mondayitis) so a stand-in had to be found without a full understanding of the role or mere laziness.

Anyway, wrong flavour of 'Asian' for 'taking more care'. If you're talking about the Japanese culture, sure. Chinese culture, meh, not so much. As I said, you can try to knuckle down on quality control but as many manufacturers have found, to their own detriment, it's not as easy as simply making rules and expecting or even lightly monitoring compliance. You have to have total dominance over the entire manufacturing process or there will be shortcuts made. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.

There's a book I stumbled across called "Poorly Made in China", which I read a few years ago that was pretty much a mirror perfect example of what clients of mine experienced whilst trying to manufacture to a high standard in China about a decade ago. They thought they'd save themselves freight costs and lead-time for jobs we were doing there and that along with the savings in labour cost it would mean they could afford to iron out any quality issues. Boy, were they wrong. These are not small companies either. The 'next level evil genius' shortcuts and completely unrepentant attitude when caught red handed was truly a sight to behold.

When Kiwirail had some new locomotives made in China, my wife happened to be working for them.

When she told me, I said "How many Kiwirail engineering staff have been posted to China to oversee the manufacturing of them?"

"None." came the response.

"Uh oh...." said I.

Guess what happened when the locos arrived in NZ? Yep. Problems that ought to have been averted in manufacturing had to be corrected here. However, it was spun politically as being all the fault of having the units built in China, not the fault of management for saving a few dollars on renting a flat and paying some airfares to put some staff on the job overseas...

cadman

tdgeek

gzt

Geektastic