Concise Guide to Sourcing in China. Robert G's Little Handbook.

Robert G has been sourcing in China for over a decade keflex. He works on products manufactured in quantities of 100k, and often up to 1 million or more, and usually works with factories that have at least 7000 workers tadalisb sx. Robert posted a response to CrunchGear's 'Going It Alone' series written by guest author, Adam Hocherman kamagra oral jelly. Because I think Robert's response reads like a concise handbook on China sourcing, I asked him for permission to quote his comments. “Sure,” he wrote, “grab whatever you want.” I have taken the liberty to make him a guest author. Here follow his words.

I’ll be curious to see article three when you start to do the real work. I’ve been doing this type of work for over 10 years and I would find it difficult to write a series of articles in such a cheery tone. It’s a challenge, and I like the work but the newness has worn off by now. I cringe when I read stories that make it sound easy or straight forward.

My experience may be very different than people who work in a different industries (toys and low-end consumer electronics) or quantities. (Although I have not found that to be the case when I talk to people I meet.)

Let me say that I really like the people I work with in China and Hong Kong. In general I find them to be much more likable than the people I meet here in California. That being said:

• If you don’t work with reputable factories you will have a high probability of getting ripped off in one way or another.
• You cannot go it alone and just be a mechanical or electrical engineer or industrial designer. You must be able to work in all fields or you are in trouble.
• The factory workers, or other suppliers, will find ways to shock you every time in ... new and exciting ways they find to do exactly the wrong thing. Some of it because the people are junior and don’t know better, some times because they don’t understand what is acceptable in a product that is meant for a western market, and sometimes because they don’t care. There is almost no way to predict the things that will happen. People who do this for a living can tell you story after story that would leave you speechless.
• If you are not there, things will move slowly because other customers are there demanding work on their product. If you are there you will spend a great deal of time just sitting and waiting for them to work. Contrary to popular belief, things do not move very quickly in China.
• Don’t be an arrogant westerner. If you treat the people poorly, they will not like you. They are good at hiding the fact that they don’t like you but it will come back to bite you later. This shouldn’t need to be said but you’d be surprised at the behavior of westerners.
• If you stay in first class hotels or overtly show wealth or status they will notice. For the factory owners, this may not be a problem. For the workers that you will have to form a relationship with, this will be a problem and they will think less of you.
• They say they understand what you mean but they don’t. Until you see the code run, or hold the model in your hand, you don’t really know if they understand.
• There are very few people who actually do work, the level of delegation is incredible. Customers pawn work off to the factories. Factories pawn work off to agents. Agents pawn work off to component manufacturers. For anything non-trivial, you may not have the ability to sit down with the guy doing the work.
• In general, they will never tell you the truth about a problem. There is a wall between the locals and the foreigners that will rarely be broken down. You must make friends with a couple of people and hope that they tell you the truth when the meeting is over and you are alone. For me, I pick my own IC vendors that I have worked with for years. I can count on them to give me the inside scoop.
• Random factory engineers will point out potential problems and throw up roadblocks. Most of the time they are nonissues or, in the worst cases, imaginary problems. If you don’t satisfy the person who raises it then you will have to deal with it later- possibly when they refuse to begin production until you fix it. I’ve had to OK the addition of tens of thousands of dollars in totally unnecessary components because some engineer invented a problem in his head. There is nothing you can do about this.
• You will have the feeling that decisions are being made to help someone get a kickback. In some cases they are and there is nothing you can do about it.
• If you bring in your own suppliers, they will believe you are getting a kickback.
• You have to constantly remind yourself that this is a different culture and you cannot judge their behavior from a western point-of-view. Things that would be totally unacceptable here are the norm there. You will be shocked as you come to understand this.
• The locals talk A LOT and it’s a small world. As you get to know more people there, you will be surprised at how much information is shared.
• The regulatory requirements to get a product back into the US are staggering. Make sure you know what you’re doing and that the factory has worked in your exact field so that they know how to get it approved.
• It is almost impossible to get around China alone. Anything more than short rides to well-known places will require a guide or factory-arranged transportation.
• You are not in control. Don’t fight it, just do your best to guide the process where you can. Enjoy the adrenaline rush of not knowing if everything will work out fine or if it will crash and burn.
• Finally, when people at home find out that you know how to get products made they will pitch you the worst product ideas ever. Learn to tell them about the costs of injection molds, product testing, chip masking, shipping, minimum order quantities, etc. and wait for their eyes to glaze over. This is much easier than telling them that the idea if awful.

Congratulations on going it alone- few people really understand the difficulty involved.

-Robert

In a more recent post I interview Robert on how he chooses a contract manufacturer.

For my perspective on the CrunchGear's “Going It Alone” series, read my two previous posts, here and here.