Quality management in China: not optional

I am getting tired of explaining to new importers that they MUST spend time helping the manufacturer and that they MUST check the quality of their products.

I guess they think I am promoting my services. If I were a banker, I would push them to use a letter of credit. It so happens that I am in the quality assurance field, so of course I push for QC inspections.

I have pasted excepts from articles written by experts who are NOT in my field, and who do NOT sell quality control. Maybe it will help dissipate some suspicions.

First, Etienne Charlier, from Procur’Asia in Shanghai (a sourcing company working on industrial goods), wrote Take Control of Quality Management. I like the way Etienne lays out his logic, and I very much agree with his advice.

In the West, most buyers have implicitly outsourced quality assurance and control of the product they buy to their suppliers. The buyer defines a specification and requirement, the supplier commits to deliver such product and implicitly takes the responsibility of the quality assurance structure required to deliver consistently compliant products. In addition, the supplier often knows more than the buyer about the required standards and regulations and also commits to comply with them.

While purchasing from Chinese supplier, it is dangerous to proceed with the same implicit outsourcing. At the very least, it needs to be a conscious decision made by the buyer after understanding the real capabilities of each particular supplier. Beside bad suppliers which any professional buyer will avoid, there are a range of suppliers with good capabilities but which are not fully aware of the intricacy of what is required to get “good quality”. These suppliers want to be good, can be good but do not know what they need to do to be good.

This is where the buyer needs to take back the control of quality management. As a buyer, taking control of quality management means:

• Define what one requires to consider that the product is of good quality (product, packing, documentation, legal standards, industry standards, company standards, …);
• Define, with the supplier, a quality plan that will highlight all these points and will confirm what is done by the supplier as routine quality control;
• Take a “we trust you but will check it anyway” attitude and organize regular pre-shipment inspections to verify that the quality plan was respected.

Second, Dan Harris, an international lawyer with deep experience in China business, wrote China QC Inspection. So Totally Worth It. Dan has a strong opinion about QC inspections:

I have always thought it crazy for a company not to have a quality control inspection done of its China product before shipping. Yes, crazy.

I have no idea what percent of product comes bad if you do not engage in QC inspections nor do I know what percent of product comes bad if you do, but I have seen enough to become absolutely convinced (as is pretty much every person I know who has worked in or around Chinese manufacturing over the last five years) that QC inspections are pretty much always worth the money.

I very much agree. Two years ago, I wrote 5 legitimate reasons why your company does not need third-party quality control. If you are not in one of these 5 situations, I truly believe you need to send QC inspectors or engineers in the factories that work for you.

What do you think?