You get what you pay for at the Chinese "fake" markets -- these Paul Frank monkey watches and Rolex may approximate the real thing from afar, but they are in fact stunningly cheap knock-offs. But the real trouble begins when critical performance attributes are traded off for low cost, as reported on in the NYT article "US Companies Increase Testing of Chinese Goods."
From the NYT article: "The discovery over the last few months of tainted or defective products from China — including toothpaste, tires, toys and fish — has prompted United States lawmakers to fault companies for compromising quality in their quest for inexpensive imports and higher profits."
That should ring familiar to many engineers, While I was editor of Design News magazine, I talked extensively with engineers who had experience outsourcing their designs to China. Some pointed out that they had trouble getting components to meet the spec in the first place. Many others described a particularly pernicious problem known as "spec drift," whereby a component would initially meet the spec. Then, over time, its quality and performance would gradually fall off. One engineer in the medical industry summed it up this way: "We outsourced to China to get a good price and lead time, but it appears we traded off quality in the process."
Those nasty trade-offs, they'll always get you in the end.
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Comments (2)
You are partially right. But today outsourcing is very much cost effective measure for all companies. You shouldn't have to pay salary, wages & other overhead expenses if you outsource your work rather than work it inhouse. You have to pay for some money at once. Besides there are several problems like power cuts, strikes etc which you should not have to bother if you outsource your work.
Posted by Biswaroop Todi | July 11, 2007 9:01 AM
Wow! And here I was thinking that my biggest concern as an engineer was where I was going to find my first job, now that all of the work in my profession has gone to places where the nerds can be paid in soft currency. I was so focused on trivia like buying food and no ending up between addresses again, that it never occured to me that my real worry was where I would have my products manufactured after I started my first factory. Imagine that.
I guess we never know how rich we are. Could you tell that to some of the local banks, though, because they seem a little skeptical about this when I try to make withdrawals? Thanks.
Posted by Joseph Dunphy | August 19, 2007 8:30 PM