Quality Fade

[unixronin]

Or, "Don't buy ANYTHING manufactured in China."

That part you're outsourcing the manufacture of?  It's perfectly safe, because they're making it to your design and specifications, right?  Well, they were when they started.  Does it still meet your specs now?

Some quality issues are not all that serious, but others are downright frightening.  One of the most disturbing examples I have encountered while working in China involved the manufacture and importation of aluminum systems used to construct high-rise commercial buildings.  These are the systems that support tons of concrete as it is being poured, and their general stability is critical.

The American company that designed and patented the system engineered all key components.  It knew exactly how much each part was supposed to weigh, and yet the level of engineering sophistication did not stop the supplier from making a unilateral decision to reduce the specifications.  When the "production error" was caught, one aluminum part was found to be weighing less than 90% of its intended weight.

That small appliance.  It carries UL, CSA and TUV product-safety ratings.  But is what they're manufacturing now the same internally as what UL and TUV tested?  Maybe not:

Third-party testing is far from fail-safe. Consider one study conducted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2001. In a review of nearly 200 recalled electrical products from China, the CPSC found that more than 25% had had prior approval by an international third-party testing agency such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Intertek Testing Services (ETL) or the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).

The final paragraph of the article contains the telling phrase:  "Race to the bottom."  The quest for cheaper and cheaper suppliers to reduce costs and increase short-term profits conveniently ignores the old adage that you get what you pay for — if you're lucky.  If you're only willing to pay your suppliers for sows' ears, don't expect to get silk purses.

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

NASA has a term for this: "normalization of deviance." It originated from the Feynman report on the Challenger disaster, where he noted that substantial deviations from specification were noticed and accepted on the grounds of, "well, it didn't cause problems the last time we flew."

It starts off simple. "Well, let's undercut by two percent and see if our buyer notices. He didn't? Okay, then two percent below spec is still good for his purposes. Now let's try three, and then four..."

By the time the buyer discovers he's been fleeced, he's out huge amounts to undo all the construction. The vendor declares an immediate bankruptcy and the fat cats cash out.

I imagine there's soon going to be a "inspections tax" in goods from China, in the form of all the additional QA inspections that has to be done to ensure conformance to spec. I would also be in favor of federal law saying that if you buy from Chinese vendors, you may be sued by injured parties for failures connected to your product which occur as a result of substandard parts.