【10.1.23 China Law Blog】China Quality. It's Getting Better All The Time.

和解团结

【原文链接】http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/01/china_quality_its_getting_bett.html
【作者】 Dan Harris


【原文】

A domestic products liability lawyer friend of mine sent me an article essentially saying how Chinese factories do not care about quality, Chinese factories will try to get away with whatever they can because they are run by evil people, these things are getting worse, and Americans who buy from Chinese factories are stupid. I am over-simplifying the article, but not by all that much.

I am not going to link over to that article in deference to the person who wrote it (who I know personally), but as you have probably have guessed by now, I am going to skewer it. I think it bears mentioning that, as far as I know, the person who wrote it has not done any China business for years.

I am going to leave the big issues raised by such claims (racism, ethnocentrism, etc.) to others, and just attack it for being wrong.

Though one story does not a rebuttal make, this one story is so apropos, I am going to lead with it.

I met with a client all afternoon on Friday. He is from China, but moved to the US maybe 20 years ago for graduate school. He eventually formed a now thriving construction parts business. We talked about his history of getting parts from China and he talked about how it took him two years of his training factories in China before he had product he could sell in the US. He said it took him another couple years before he had factories that understood how US quality definitions are so different from China. We talked about how in China if you make a $30 part badly, you just reduce the price to $10 and sell it, whereas in the US, that bad quality part is completely 100% unsalable at any price because nobody will accept it. Nobody. My client talked of how his Chinese factories simply could not grasp this at first, but that he now has around ten factories who have consistently been churning out excellent parts for him for years.

Did these ten factories start out evil and then become moral? I don’t think so. What happened is that the US company taught them how to make quality parts, taught them the long term value of making quality parts, and then, literally showed them the long term value by increasing their purchases and forming a partnership.

This story is actually fairly typical. I must hear at least a story a month from clients who tell me of crippling quality problems their first few years in China, but of how for the last few years, things have been going really smoothly. Sometimes this is because they stuck with their initial factory and worked out all the kinks and sometimes it is because they moved on to a better factory.

Manufacturers, what are you seeing out there? Is quality improving, declining, or staying the same? And, more controversially, in your experience (and be honest here), whose fault is it when the quality is bad, the Chinese factory or the American company for failing to be clear on how things need to be?

和解团结

不好意思，发错地方了

0591

认领

0591

【10.1.23 China Law Blog】China Quality. It's Getting Better All The Time.
译文：中国法律博客---《中国产品的质量一直在提高》

【原文】

A domestic products liability lawyer friend of mine sent me an article essentially saying how Chinese factories do not care about quality, Chinese factories will try to get away with whatever they can because they are run by evil people, these things are getting worse, and Americans who buy from Chinese factories are stupid. I am over-simplifying the article, but not by all that much.
译文：一位国内负责产品质量的律师朋友给我寄了一篇文章，文章基本上是讲中国工厂如何不关心产品质量，以及那些道德败坏的工厂负责人如何尽其所能地逃避责任，更糟的是，（文中还称）那些向中国工厂购买产品的美国人是多么的愚笨。这不是这篇文章的全部内容，只是我对这篇文章的一些简单描述。

I am not going to link over to that article in deference to the person who wrote it (who I know personally), but as you have probably have guessed by now, I am going to skewer it. I think it bears mentioning that, as far as I know, the person who wrote it has not done any China business for years.
译文：我不想按作者的意图去看他的文章（我认识他），但是现在你可能已经猜到了，我打算讽刺下这篇文章。我认为这篇文章需要被提及据我所知的作者，他已经有好多年没有在中国做生意了。

I am going to leave the big issues raised by such claims (racism, ethnocentrism, etc.) to others, and just attack it for being wrong.
译文：这些声称提出的索赔（种族歧视、种族个人主义等等）大问题还是留给其他人吧，我不想因为误会而攻击这事（译者注：此句实在翻译不来，哪位大大指点一下）


Though one story does not a rebuttal make, this one story is so apropos, I am going to lead with it.
译文：通过这个故事也许不能完全做出反驳，但我将会用它来说明一些问题。

I met with a client all afternoon on Friday. He is from China, but moved to the US maybe 20 years ago for graduate school. He eventually formed a now thriving construction parts business. We talked about his history of getting parts from China and he talked about how it took him two years of his training factories in China before he had product he could sell in the US. He said it took him another couple years before he had factories that understood how US quality definitions are so different from China. We talked about how in China if you make a $30 part badly, you just reduce the price to $10 and sell it, whereas in the US, that bad quality part is completely 100% unsalable at any price because nobody will accept it. Nobody. My client talked of how his Chinese factories simply could not grasp this at first, but that he now has around ten factories who have consistently been churning out excellent parts for him for years.
译文：周五下午我遇到一个朋友，他来自中国，大概在20年前他考研后去了美国，现握有繁盛的建筑零部件业务。我们谈论了有关他在中国的部分往事，以及他在中国过去两年内，他是如何管理工厂从而使他的工厂能够生产出可以在美国销售的产品。他说，他是花了好几年的时间才意识到美国人对产品质量的定义与中国人有什么不同。如果在中国你制造出一个成本为30美元的伪劣产品，你会把价钱降低为10美元，然后买出去，但在美国，质量不佳的产品，无论降价多少，100%无法售出，因为没人会接受质量不佳的产品。我的委托人说起初他的中国工厂无法理解这是为什么，但是这几年，他的大约十家工厂已经坚持不懈地制造出大量的优异产品。


Did these ten factories start out evil and then become moral? I don’t think so. What happened is that the US company taught them how to make quality parts, taught them the long term value of making quality parts, and then, literally showed them the long term value by increasing their purchases and forming a partnership.
译文：这十家工厂难道都是刚开始就道德败坏制造伪劣产品，随后良心发现开始提高产品质量吗？我不这样认为，事实上是美国公司教他们如何制造优异质量的产品，使他们明白长期生产优异质量产品的价值观。随后中国工厂的产品大量销售，他们也与美国公司形成了长期的合作伙伴。

This story is actually fairly typical. I must hear at least a story a month from clients who tell me of crippling quality problems their first few years in China, but of how for the last few years, things have been going really smoothly. Sometimes this is because they stuck with their initial factory and worked out all the kinks and sometimes it is because they moved on to a better factory.
译文：这个故事实际上很典型也很合理，我至少一个月会从我的委托人嘴里听到一个类似这样的故事。他说，刚开始的几年中国工厂滥造伪劣商品，但随后他们重视并提高了产品质量，近几年，产品质量的发展也一直很顺利，这是因为有时候他们坚持在初办的工厂里制定出所有的操作指南，有时候他们在一个更好的工厂里（制作产品）。

Manufacturers, what are you seeing out there? Is quality improving, declining, or staying the same? And, more controversially, in your experience (and be honest here), whose fault is it when the quality is bad, the Chinese factory or the American company for failing to be clear on how things need to be?
译文：制造商们，因此你们可以看出什么？是商品质量的提高、衰退、还是保持不变？更加争议的是，以你们的经验来说，产品质量的问题是谁更应该负责的？中国的工厂还是美国的公司呢？

译注：括号里红字部分为上下文通顺而加进去的，其他括号内内容为原文就有。