capability Inspection in China - Like learning a New Language?

It's one of the hardest aspects of doing company in China for companies who are finding to outsource their production, studying the language. English is not widely spoken in the country; in fact estimates give China the bottom level of functional literacy of any country in the world when it comes to English.

Mandarin Chinese is most commonly spoken in China, with Cantonese advent a distant 2nd. So studying Mandarin would seem sensible, until you consider that much of the country's manufacturing heartland is based around Guangzhou and in that region Cantonese is the celebrated tongue, though not in Shenzhen only an hour away and closer to Hong Kong (where Cantonese is the standard).

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Sadly though even if you do learn to speak both languages you're going to find that capability concepts aren't common in China, in most cases your new facility won't have heard of Kaizen, Total capability administration (Tqm), Six Sigma, Iso, or Ce marking and if they have, their understanding of the ideas will likely leave a lot to be desired.

The Chinese collective aren't particularly bothered about capability when it comes to their own purchasing decisions, despite the "economic boom" that has catapulted their nation to the status of the world's second largest economy. The ground level photograph is very different to the headlines. A salary of around 0 Us dollars a month is adequate to enable you to join the middle class, but it's not adequate to leave much in the way of disposable income.

In truth China has the least affordable housing market in the world when you collate asset prices to wages, and the median Chinese house will spend around 90% of their income on buying their house on a mortgage, paying transport costs to their work place and feeding themselves and outside utilities bills.

This means that the exiguous disposable slice of their salaries has to stretch as far as possible, which has led to the local buyer becoming obsessed with cost at the cost of whatever else. As long as something is fit for purpose for now, it doesn't matter about tomorrow.

Which presents a qoute for Western companies outsourcing to the country, their customers do care if goods last, they do care if they are made to an ethical appropriate and there will be gigantic collective outcry if a lack of care leads to a risky stock resulting in a recall or worse personal injury or even death.

Which means that while you may not need to learn the language, after all most businesses rely on a local translation service which provides an examiner and ensures documentation is understood by both parties to any agreement, you may well need to teach your provider the language of quality.

When you begin outsourcing it's worth spending some time working out your objectives, which should not be exiguous to; "saving money". Your customers want to save money but they don't want to save money at the cost of their safety or the capability of the environment nor do they want their products to be made by children working for 10 cents a day.

You need to be very clear about your client's requirements prior to starting any negotiation; you must be able to say in fact what it is that matters to your end users.

When you begin to draw up an trade with a provider again you should not focus solely on price, after all it's cheaper to build a stock with no standards for raw materials (the facility can change their sources at a whim without letting you know about the corresponding drop in quality) and no capability inspection procedures in place, than it is to make products that are fully assured to meet your exacting requirements.

You should work with your provider to build capability checklists and process documentation for production, for packaging and for materials and any other requirements you may have. All of this documentation should be bi-lingual (English plus the local Chinese dialect) as clear and easy to way as inherent ideally with diagrams explaining any involved points (literacy rates vary among Chinese workers greatly - your guides may be phenomenal but if they aren't understood by those doing the work, they still aren't much use to you).

You also need to build in some form of auditing and inspection regime, the local "face" culture may mean that your facility will tell you they understand your demands when they do not, or may agree to your demands with no intention of following them (it's hard for population to say "no") or they may implement them and then fast or moderately start to cut corners or move away from processes whether accidentally or by design.

Many companies do all this work themselves, it can be time sharp but in the end it assures their customers that their brand can be relied upon. Other outsourcers work with a local company specialising in quality, with both local and Western staff who can make sure that all transportation is clear and standards are ensured. Whichever way you select to go remember that capability Inspection in China is not an elective route, at least until the country learns the language of capability anyway.

capability Inspection in China - Like learning a New Language?

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