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Consumer demand drives quality control in China
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22/09/2008
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A population of 1.3billion has a great deal of spending power and Chinese consumers are evolving quickly. A growing and sophisticated consumer class is stamping its collective foot, wanting the best, the latest, the fastest. But how can this benefit European designers and manufacturers? And can it really offer guarantees of quality and technical expertise?
“I guess many people maintained a certain view of China as being content with quite limited manufacturing and quality ambitions,” said Cheng Yoe, managing director of UK based outsourcing specialist Components Bureau. He has been dealing with electronics manufacturing in China for more than 25years and has seen the sector evolve from a proposition whose only advantage was price into a more mature sector with an experienced talent pool to complement that of Europe.
“The reality is the domestic market is demanding increasingly sophisticated appliances and products and, as a result, production has been increased at the quality and innovation end of the market. This will result in the more reputable manufacturers profiting, whilst backstreet sweatshops will disappear. From a design perspective, it offers opportunities to tap into real quality allied to the short lead times on offer. Meanwhile, age old concerns such as IP are being tackled from the government down and, again, it is very much the case that only the strongest and most compliant will survive to enjoy future business.”
Professor Kei Biu Chan is chairman and senior managing director of SMT Holdings, Components Bureau’s manufacturing partner in China and Hong Kong. “We have a hard job to satisfy our domestic market,” he explains. “Whereas, five years ago, people would have been happy to drive a very basic car, those same people are demanding all the latest innovations – the electric windows, satnav, paddle shifts –and that’s simply in the automotive industry! It’s the same across all products; tastes have changed and that’s a good thing for everybody because it means China must now produce quality and not just quantity!”
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Author
Mike Richardson
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