Who thinks American companies should reduce manufacturing in China?
filed in News & Events on Mar.12, 2010
Chineses companies have consistently bad products- poisonous dog food, lead-coated kids toys, unsterilized recycled chopsticks, deadly medication/food and many other careless and dumb public health-risk products. These are not simple mistakes but mistakes due to a non-rigorous safety code/culture (just think about it.) There is no telling how long these bad production-practices have been going on. They are overwhelmed! I say production should move to Africa. Contrary to what the media makes people think, not all African countries are war-torn and you can get the labor in Africa just as well as you can get in China.
Plus, you can tell they are overwhelmed by a CEO over there committing suicide, the Chinese head of their food and device adminstration was executed and many other things like this.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
Anytime you manufacture in a country without good regulatory agencies, you are going to have this problem whether it is China, Africa, Bangladesh or any other country… If American manufacturers aren’t demanding quality assurance in the products they make in foreign countries, no amount of moving around is going to make their products safer. That’s why American manufacturers go there in the first place. It adds to their cost when they have to follow government regulations on safety and quality assurance. American consumers have to boycott foreign goods until they are proven safe. That’s the only way to get the message across to manufacturers.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
I do. But unfortunately global corporate greed is a powerful force. The large Walmart type corporations are only interested in spreading like a cancer, and the bottom line. Maximizing profits and providing excessive compensation to executives, regardless of performance, is what it’s all about. If a Chinese worker getting paid $0.12 an hour can produce an inferior, and possibly dangerous product that Walmart can then sell to us for $9.99 at an "everyday low price", that’s all that matters.
The fact that the environment is harmed, workers are exploited, local jobs are lost or replaced by low quality Walmart jobs, consumers are possibly endangered, and local businesses are closed does not matter to these mega-corporations. They have their lobbyists that pay off our governments and politicians.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
Well they should certainly reduce the manufacturing of bad products. I think they are trying to do that.
But if they just willy-nilly brought the manufacturing back to the USA some prices would have to be increased. Labor intensive products would really go up, nobody would buy them and then nobody would have a job.
If you built a robot to do the labor of 100 Chinese, it would probably create 4 or 5 jobs in USA. Still idling many.
Some overseas produced stuff has good quality.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
Why not keep manufacturing here is the US? If the low wages are the issue, why can’t prisoners do the work. That would give the prisoners something productive to do, they could learn skills , and make a little money while incarcerated. Just an idea……..
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
American companies are not going to stop outsourcing manufacturing until the American public wants them to.
American’s want cheap crap. Walmart being the #1 retailer is proof. Dollar stores are popping up everywhere.
Should American companies stop doing things that American consumers want?
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
HI Green, I’m an international buyer for my own company’s, and will give you the Best, truthful answer why Africa, Indonesia, Phillipines, and a few other 3rd world countries don’t make the higher tech products that we contract to China.
Eduation, culture, climate, political systems, historical background, and willingness to work extremely hard. These opinions are based on solid experience myself, and many other buyers in my circle face in our challenges to get the best quality for the lowest price.
This isn’t bad news though, because we all believe its only a matter of time (perhaps a few decades) when these countries will catch up to par with China (and India, which is growing technologically fast.) The biggest of these factors is Education.
This is the simplest answer with a promising future for Africa and other 3rd world countries (without going into long explanations of how religion, culture, history, political systems affected their current situations.)
Inferior procucts:
China is currently experiencing a media trend towards highlighting all of their screw ups. This is due to lack of regulatory control, as China’s gov’t literally gave private business regulation free to private owners 4-5 years ago. The media has highlighted this, as it should – and China is fixing the problems as we speak. Factories are becoming more "buyer" sensitive about working conditions and safety standards. The real blame goes to the buyers (like me) who have a duty to have full time QC (quality control) experts inspecting every process of our product creation. The fact we turn our backs on them while they’re producing goods opens a door for a stressed manager to cheap out by building inferior (and hazardous) goods. These problems are mere "growing pains" of a developing chinese economy similar to the days when Americans sold hogwash products, tonics and elixors that didn’t work 100+ years ago.
The world is changing very quickly, and I truly believe its only time before we all evolve into happier, healthier, more peaceful people who find deep meaning in our everyday lives.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
We definitely should not rely on one country for so many products. It is dangerous not just because of safety but the economic control that it gives any country making most of our products. We also need to place more responsibility for product safety on those U.S.-based companies that import, distribute, and sell products. If all parties in the supply chain were subject to large civil penalties and even criminal penalties, importers in order to protect themselves would develop quality assurance programs that would ensure that products are produced according to good manufacturing practices and meet quality and safety standards. Ultimately it comes down to profit for companies and if we don’t hold them accountable, we are going to see many more recalls.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
they should all move to china, so we can finaly all stop buying their crap.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
I agree but money is powerful. A lot of companies like Mattel are in denial and refuse to do anything differently. I’m sure they have done a cost-benefit analysis. It’s cheaper for them to deal with lawsuits then to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. or somewhere else. Our government doesn’t do anything because who do you think is sponsoring their campaigns?
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
America needs to take care of America by giving Americans more jobs. It is very hard to find a toy or any electronic product that doesn’t come from China or Japan. There has already been animals killed from their wheat. How can they expect a country that doesn’t care for it’s animals to care for ours.And there have been reports of cancer causing chemicals in toys that come from China & Japan.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
Absolutely. And I want all customer service people in the US not in Pakistan or India.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
I think American companies should stop manufacturing in China. The money that they are saving in overhead or salary costs are only being spent in recalls and lawsuits. If the companies werent so greedy they would see that in the long run paying American workers higher wages and getting safer products is for the best. But greed is winning out and American businesses are the last to learn a good lesson!
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
If we continue to receive products from China–We should at the least up-grade inspection of those goods.
March 12th, 2010 on 12:21 am
Simple answer.ABSOLUTELY!We need to seriously reduce our trade balance with China.