Swapping out products for an almost identical-looking Chinese copy made to order by some outsourcing factory. They think they'll be able to super-size their profit margins and people will keep buying their stuff. What they don't realise is that any old fool can order generic tools from China for pennies and their hollowed-out "design"-only office-based tool manufacturing company won't serve a purpose any longer.
"We can save $10M by manufacturing in China." "Great! Let's do that!" "But we have to spend $1M to ensure a smooth transition." "No thanks. I want all the savings and none of the spending. Next meeting."
The issue comes in the cost cutting, not China being the source.
I work for a major company doing quality control, and I can tell you our most consistent and problem free suppliers are from China. Factories where workers work on dirt floors on their hands and knees, yet still producing finer quality work than our domestic suppliers.
Its mostly an issue with the American companies not caring much about their products. For most aspects, it isn't hard to improve the quality immensely. A view from the consumer is
Outsourcing is seen as a way to save money so corporations treat it that way. It doesn't matter if it's software or a wrench. The entire rationale for shipping work to China is going to make the end result suspect from the start.
Like the article bluntly stated... this isn't about Chinese factories being bad but American management being bad.
Factories where workers work on dirt floors on their hands and knees, yet still producing finer quality work than our domestic suppliers.
It is all about the quality control, and I have had similar experiences with some things. My hunting knife was made by hand by some guy probably working on a dirt floor over a pile of coal with a hammer, anvil, and a tea kettle of water. I have heard it said that the chines offer multiple qualities, there is the first quality which is as good as you will find anywhere else with great quality materials, nice finish, tight tolerances and great quality. From there it goes down all the way to the make it as che
Some years ago, the president of the company I worked for wrote a book on his management philosophy. In it, he noted that you should always be using your current job to leverage yourself into a better job and that if you were in the same position for more than 2 or 3 years, your career was stagnating. If that's a typical attitude for upper management (and I suspect it is), these folks are not making foolish mistakes. They are maximizing profit to leverage themselves into a better job somewhere else. If, after they move on, their former company craters, it's simply proof of how good they were.
This is the Locust Theory of Management (I just made that up). Eat out all the resources until they are gone, then move on to another company and plunder again. Also known as Other People's Money.
No wonder this mindset has become known as an empty fraud upon the nation, something appealing to the self-centered, psychopaths, and empty suits with MBAs. It's nothing more than legalized stealing in a rigged game. "There is no company without me, and life is a zero-sum game of winners and losers."
Big corp. execs think they're clever (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I imagine those meetings go something like this:
"We can save $10M by manufacturing in China."
"Great! Let's do that!"
"But we have to spend $1M to ensure a smooth transition."
"No thanks. I want all the savings and none of the spending. Next meeting."
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of my old dialup isp several years back $19.95/mo then they stopped hosting their own dial up servers.
I found another isp using the same dialup number for $4.95/mo
Bet that saved them a lot of money.
Re: (Score:2)
The issue comes in the cost cutting, not China being the source.
I work for a major company doing quality control, and I can tell you our most consistent and problem free suppliers are from China. Factories where workers work on dirt floors on their hands and knees, yet still producing finer quality work than our domestic suppliers.
Its mostly an issue with the American companies not caring much about their products. For most aspects, it isn't hard to improve the quality immensely. A view from the consumer is
Re: (Score:2)
Outsourcing is seen as a way to save money so corporations treat it that way. It doesn't matter if it's software or a wrench. The entire rationale for shipping work to China is going to make the end result suspect from the start.
Like the article bluntly stated... this isn't about Chinese factories being bad but American management being bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Factories where workers work on dirt floors on their hands and knees, yet still producing finer quality work than our domestic suppliers.
It is all about the quality control, and I have had similar experiences with some things. My hunting knife was made by hand by some guy probably working on a dirt floor over a pile of coal with a hammer, anvil, and a tea kettle of water. I have heard it said that the chines offer multiple qualities, there is the first quality which is as good as you will find anywhere else with great quality materials, nice finish, tight tolerances and great quality. From there it goes down all the way to the make it as che
Re:Big corp. execs think they're clever (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
This is the Locust Theory of Management (I just made that up). Eat out all the resources until they are gone, then move on to another company and plunder again. Also known as Other People's Money.
No wonder this mindset has become known as an empty fraud upon the nation, something appealing to the self-centered, psychopaths, and empty suits with MBAs. It's nothing more than legalized stealing in a rigged game. "There is no company without me, and life is a zero-sum game of winners and losers."
It's an emp