Quality Control in China

My name is Ilan Kushnir, I have been working on Supply Chain Management and Quality control in China projects since 2011, we have helped importers around the world improve their results, measure and decrease risks enhancing their business scope by adding added value to their manufacturing process.

I am going to write about real-life experiences we have gathered as a team dedicated to identify and develop strategic adjustments and integrating them into the supply chain of many importers over the years.    

Have you ever heard people say “you get what you pay for”?

Sometimes is true, whenever somebody bought something very cheap and folk wisdom dictates the quality of that product cannot be expected to be good. But, if we look at things the other way around then it should work exactly in the opposite direction, right?

Theory of cheap products v. not cheap products: (Quality control in China)

1. If we buy cheap then we cannot expect the product to be very good.
2. If we pay fair for the product then it´s quality should be directly proportional to the price we paid.
3. Wrong! (this is where the theory is held from becoming law)

Many companies make the mistake of placing assumptions when buying wholesale from China, whether they are migrating their production from one supplier to another, developing a new manufacturing partner, or they just started buying overseas, assuming that because you are buying at a good price or because the supplier seems to be reliable does not mean you will receive what you are expecting.

There are many reasons to explain why quality control standards in China are not met, for example:

You are a distributor for a big retailer and you are placing an order of laptop cases based upon your customer´s seasonal demands, very hard to set a forecast and if you can, it´s even harder to stick to it (because your customer´s purchasing system is seasonal), so you´ve been given 60 days to deliver; design, materials, details, and target price has been defined, you´ve negotiated trading conditions in terms of quality standards, production, and shipping schedule. All there left for you to do is follow up once a week with the supplier and hope for the best.

Twenty days of production and another 21-23 at sea, it is safe to assume that you´ll have your products at your warehouse fifteen days before the deadline, time enough to relabel, repack, count inventory and deliver upon request. 

The only problem is that a few weeks back when you were negotiating the details of your order with the supplier over emails, Whatsapp, Wechat and phone calls, you thought that it was agreed upon genuine leather, after all, you are paying a fair price, but the supplier thought that  the agreement was synthetic leather, because genuine leather is considerably more expensive and it takes longer to produce.

Who is to blame for the misfortune?

• Chinglish 
• (Chinese + English = Chinglish)
• It might be the case of an honest mistake.

It is very common to lose perspective of the real value of things, especially when buying wholesale from China; we have come to adopt an ideology that because we are buying from China it ought to be incredibly cheap; while buying from Chinese suppliers is still very profitable it is not as cheap as it was a decade ago. (i will go deeper on that subject in another post)

This is where the vision of importers can get blurry; “I am buying in China, expecting the quality I need at the lowest price, this is the way things are over there, that´s the secret of my competitor”; convincing yourself might not be enough to ensure success in your endeavor. In fact most of the time there are issues that arise whilst production that were not considered before because of lack of information or experience.

The manufacturer might have run out of supplies because another customer placed a bigger order and therefore yours went down on their priority list, which means that whatever materials they were going to use for your production, they will now use for that other´s customer because his business is bigger than yours, and so you production is delayed for another two to three weeks depending on the material´s availability and pricing at that moment on the market; or they will use whatever they could get their hands on and maybe the quality or description of those materials is not right.

Another reason things might go astray is that factories are battling with their employees over salaries, causing them a shortage of manpower or lack of motivation on the workers that do remain laboring, managers, and supervisors are gone and/or they lose control over their staff and the habitual process of Quality Control in China programs; when this happens your contact at the factory won´t come running to you to let you know things are getting tough, instead it is recommendable you have your own monitoring strategy to prevent any incidence before the whole lot has been finished and on time to make apply any corrections before the merchandise has left the factory.

To summarize, it is accurate to say that a QC inspection can reduce significantly the margin of error and by adopting it as a constant practice there are high probabilities your supplier will catch up with your expectations; for some customers, we have designed inhouse training programs adapted specifically for their own necessities but understanding also the factory´s weaknesses and working hand in hand to improve not only the quality of the goods itself but also the handling, delivery schedules, and final destination normativity compliance.

For more details and quotations please contact us by leaving us a ticket, our live chat or writing directly to us by wechat or whatsapp.