I was speaking with a friend of mine in Aus who was recently advised by his accountant that he should cease manufacture of his clothing line in Aus, and start buying his wares in China. Purely under the pretense that he stands to greatly increase his profitability and that everybody else is doing it, so best to get cracking.
My friend took some examples of his clothing line to China to see what the price differential was, and to see what level of maintained quality was to be the outcome, as his company has a very good reputation for quality, something he is unwilling to compromise on ethically.
To cut a very long story short, after receiving the China made samples that were interpreted off his supplied examples, which were 50% the cost of his production line in AUS, the quality was extremely poor, the fabrics much thinner, and the quality of stitching was not consistent to the AS Quality assured expected standards, and didn't last 1/4 of their standard durability test.
When he gave a detailed list of changes that needed to be implemented to equal the identical quality that was achieved in Australia, guess what ? The price quoted per garment ended up being 25% more expensive to produce than what he was already paying in Australia, providing Australian staff a living... Very much a false sense of economy when products are compared on a quality for quality basis, it seems that China does not share the same quality aim that the Japanese did, which improved dramatically every 5 years, with reliable qulaity having adopted W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran quality maintained supplier consistency processes...
Will China ever be seen as a country that will assemble products under its own ( quality ) brand names like the Japanese successfully achieved, and be a leader in what it makes ? They ( China ) seem to hide behind nameless ( unknown ) OEM's ( That badge engineer ) that sell container lots at the lowest price, average quality products, with no interest in producing a reputation for increasing quality levels at a fair price that say, Germany or Japan consistently achieve/improve.
Is this where it's at, or will China just fizzle out the moment a competing country that can provide even cheaper labour emerges, dropped like a hot scone, with nothing to fall back on, but its own local market, which probably won't affect them much, having 1.3 billion customers at its disposal. lol
I just cant help think that China will end up being a bit of an anticlimax, with no real long term strategy for the future in place.....
What are your thoughts ?