Doing Business in China For Dummies®

Hiring Quality Control

One of the big issues that Western manufacturers moving into China face is quality control. Because of the skills gap of many Chinese workers, expecting each factory worker to do his or her own QC is almost always unrealistic.

One reason for the skills gap is that unskilled factory workers don’t have much mechanical aptitude. Also, they don’t buy and use the products themselves. Because they’re not also consumers (as Western factory workers are), they generally don’t understand the products that well. Because of the legacy of China’s previous Soviet-style manufacturing culture, which paid no heed to quality, getting Chinese workers to fully buy into and understand quality may take decades.

Most factories hire workers who are dedicated solely to doing QC. QC workers usually have the same limitations that production workers have. Therefore, you should have a given QC worker perform only one type of test. For example, you can have one worker be responsible for measuring dimensions and another worker responsible for ensuring that a component lights up. The breakdown obviously depends on what you’re making; however, your QC people likely won’t be able to understand the whole picture well. Therefore, make QC as simple as possible for each worker.

To make your QC efforts as effective as possible, pay close attention to how you provide incentives and disincentives ...