Poorly Made in China

Today I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Paul Midler, author of Poorly Made in China.

Midler provides an insiders account of the manufacturing tactics behind China's rise as a manufacturing hub for the world. Many of Midler's comments focus on the challenges of manufacturing in China and the cultural aspects that he believes contributed to safety and quality problems.

Among Midler's observations were these tidbits he provided to the group.

1. Midler disputes the idea that China is going through the same issues as Japan did in the 1950s with regard to quality. Never in the 1950s, he says, did manufacturing companies need to send thousands of people to Japan to manage quality control. Moreover, he said Japanese manufacturers have traditional sought to improve quality, sometimes to the point of obsession.

2. Midler says Chinese manufacturers are experts in what he terms the "Quality Fade". After securing a contract and creating the initial production run, Midler says Chinese manufacturers will find ways to incrementally shave costs from the production costs. Part of this he attributes to an abhorrence of waste and a deeply ingrained saving culture. He compares this to a game of Jenga, whereby manufacturers continually shave costs and quality from product specs, until the product quality becomes low-grade or even dangerous.

3. "Made In China. Made in the World" is the tag-line of a new public relations campaign funded by the Chinese government to off-set some of the recent controversies surrounding manufacturing problems. The campaign was launched in November, 2009.

Midler says it is time that people begin to seriously question the logic of producing goods in China. He says the perception that goods made in China have the lowest possible price point of any manufacturing locale is not necessarily accurate. There is a mind-set that says "that if something is made in China then it must be a good value," says Midler. But this is not necessarily the case."