SumSam
July 26th, 2007, 11:42 AM
This is an interesting and alarming article from Wharton Business School:
'Quality Fade': China's Great Business Challenge (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1776&jsessionid=9a30b42e3a1b65312679)
One of the problems facing China is that manufacturers continue to engage in a practice I call "quality fade." This is the deliberate and secret habit of widening profit margins through a reduction in the quality of materials. Importers usually never notice what's happening; downward changes are subtle but progressive. The initial production sample is fine, but with each successive production run, a bit more of the necessary inputs are missing.
The article reports that American importers often have no choice but to stick their suppliers and hope for the best.
This is not encouraging. I hope the Chinese catch the Japanese quality culture soon - now that is the right way to profits and customer trust, as taught by the famous quality gurus W. Edwards Deming, Juran and Taguchi.
'Quality Fade': China's Great Business Challenge (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1776&jsessionid=9a30b42e3a1b65312679)
One of the problems facing China is that manufacturers continue to engage in a practice I call "quality fade." This is the deliberate and secret habit of widening profit margins through a reduction in the quality of materials. Importers usually never notice what's happening; downward changes are subtle but progressive. The initial production sample is fine, but with each successive production run, a bit more of the necessary inputs are missing.
The article reports that American importers often have no choice but to stick their suppliers and hope for the best.
This is not encouraging. I hope the Chinese catch the Japanese quality culture soon - now that is the right way to profits and customer trust, as taught by the famous quality gurus W. Edwards Deming, Juran and Taguchi.