Quality Control in China – Don’t Take Unnessasery Risks

by shawn
Last updated July 28, 2020

(Last Updated On: August 6, 2020)

Probably you just won’t use quality control in China, with all the risks. You’ll have your manufacture ship your product without doing a QC on the products. Perhaps you employ your own inspectors to check the quality. Do you take unnecessary risks? One way to find out is to know more regarding carrying out quality control.

There is no such thing as having products made in China without the failure of defective products.

AQL

The first thing a buyer should learn is what percentage of defective products are acceptable in your market. You can understand when buying products for the aerospace industry, a defected product will cause disaster. In this case, the failure rate should be low, very low. However, when you produce consumer products in China by hand, you have to accept a higher rate of outages (2.5% is usual). If you would like to learn more regarding what an acceptable failure percentage for your order is, read our post: “How Does a Buyer Work by Using AQL?“

Price in China is more important than quality

Quality has not been a very important issue in China. The native customers are price-oriented and have little demand for sustainability as long as it is “new”. There’s no expectation here that garment, for instance, ought to last a long time, or that a TV ought to last twenty years. They do business in a similar way in China. Western firms are partly responsible for lower quality since they require to pay a lower price to rise their own margins. This can be at the expense of the quality of the product. When you have received a decent sample, typically you will assume that products in mass order would be of the same quality.

This should change

If we look at the success of Japan to play a dominant role in the world, we can identify 2 important success factors: strict quality control and management theories (such as Total Quality Management).

It could be that China as a production country, can endure its own quality revolution in the next few years. After all, the country has been losing production to cheaper low-wage countries for some time. It’s good for the native people that the economic success in China has resulted in higher salaries and better working conditions. However, China becomes less competitive compared to countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh because of that.

The consequences of production without quality control

When cooperating with a manufacturer in China, you will have to pay attention to quality control. China will see quality improvements of its production, however, Chinese manufacture has its own quality department but still has no quality management. It’s necessary to send your own quality inspector to the manufacturer or hire a third-party company to monitor production.

If this hasn’t been done, like with many other companies, a shameful recall can happen (even huge companies aren’t excluded from this kind of error, just think about the recall of Mattel’s toys).

Researching quality control measurement before doing business

If you would like to bring your production to China, it’s vital to research in detail how your manufacture carries out quality control. It’s usually claimed that strict quality processes are in place, and that quality inspectors do their work properly.

However, when you ask for documentation that will prove this, it usually turns out that there’s nothing. If this is the case, it doesn’t mean that you cannot do business with this manufacturer. However, you do need to invest time on your part, in ‘training’ them to really raise quality and to transfer quality awareness. Bring on workers in the factory. This should be a process you keep continuance, to avoid the manufacturer falling back to their old way.

Relationship with the manufacturer is very important

It is of great importance that the relationship with the manufacturer is based on understanding the mutual benefit. Both parties are willing to improve product quality in a positive way, in the native language and culture. If your manufacturer finds out it will sell better than its competitors due to your commitment, it’ll likely stay committed to continue making good quality.

In any case, there will eventually be a quality revolution in China. The government is now stimulating its own economy . Though the native client is more focused on a cheaper price, it looks that the Chinese customer is more and more choosing foreign products, since they’re ‘made better’. It’s of importance for every buyer to make sure quality control of their buying process, and to keep a good grip on the manufacturer.

More info about the quality control of RedSheep Trading in China?

Would you like to learn more of RedSheep Trading as a business agent in China or concerning our other services like Sourcing, Order Monitoring, or Container Loading Supervision? Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more info. Of course, you can reach us via Whatsapp.