[kalesh]

I am an entrepreneur & a small business owner in India. I did a small manufacturing in China & was blown away by their professionalism. The article mentions - `Chinese suppliers had a totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino company’s expectations` - this is so true.

In India, most manufacturing companies or businesses are trying to sell what they have or can produce (without any attention to detail). As a result, false promises & contracts are prevalent. There are no SOP's or any organized sampling process in most Indian companies vs Chinese who keep everything very formal & organized.

I never visited China & the manufacturing went perfect. In India, I personally visited the factories & still could not get the job done. All samples were rejected. Lost money & most importantly time. It's a damn mess. People seriously lack work ethic.

[satvikpendem]

From what I've heard, China also used to be like that, sending out cheap samples that didn't meet the specification, and the manufacturers there would tell you that they'd do it correctly next time, just for the same thing to happen again. But eventually they were able to do a good job. Give it time, Indian manufacturing is simply not as advanced as China's right now but it will be if enough investment is made.

[kalesh]

It's not about being advanced. It's about keeping promises & being honest. It might take a whole generation to fix this.

[SilverBirch]

Overpromising and underdelivering is what you do when you can't meet the expectations and you need to try and get the business anyway. What's the alternative? Honestly promise a product no one wants to buy. Once you've manufactured a billion widgets you no longer need to overpromise and underdeliver. It's very similar to the silicon valley "fake it till you make it" attitude.

[grantsch]

Yeah or maybe you could just be honest and not cheat. That's a good option too.

[serf]

as someone who has ran a machine shop, that's lovely -- but rare.

95 percent of the shops I have known in the past or worked with currently would sell you their ability to do something while simultaneous upgrading their equipment to match the moment the PO is signed off on.

If fab/machine/mfg shops didn't take on work that was beyond their capability then the smaller groups would starve to death immediately, being unable to use the larger contracts to facilitate upgrades.

The trick is to find a shop operator that is aware of their rate of capability upgrade and turn-around time, that way the delivery dates aren't inaccurate even if the shop capabilities need to be 'tuned' (new machines bought).

[grantsch]

Yes I am aware that lying and cheating is very common behavior

In those lines of work where it's especially common, ethical behavior can be a competitive advantage

[FpUser]

I've been burned by overpromising machine shops in Canada. They have eventually delivered but with absolutely unacceptable delays. How does one year sound?

[ElevenLathe]

I'm not sure it really is. Dial your time machine back to Victorian London and I bet you would find lots of similarly-run factories. As another poster pointed out, the choices are essentially 1) be honest that you are kind of a bad factory, and can't really produce anything that people want or 2) pretend that you are a great factory, get some business, learn and iterate. Eventually you can honestly promise high quality, but you have to survive that far first.

[viraptor]

> Dial your time machine back to Victorian London

You may want to check with Ea-Nasir about his copper ingots... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir

[grantsch]

Yes you are correct that lying and cheating does have a long history

[voakbasda]

When your competition is willing to lie and cheat, honesty is a liability that will result in bankruptcy. Worse, this attitude is endemic in all business sectors where I have worked, and I would be shocked to find a sector where this is not true.

[grantsch]

Yes that is 1 way to justify compromising your ethics

[satvikpendem]

That's part of what I mean by advanced as well. Yes, it might well take a generation, it took China a generation too.

[szundi]

Parent commenter is right, China was like that. The difference is in the root cause: attitude. Whole world is full of ridiculously hard working Chinese people rising up from being an immigrants with nothing and running like the half economies of countries after 50 years.

[yumraj]

And Indian immigrants do that too and have risen to be CEOs and Vice Presidents and Prime Ministers and Ministers and in other leadership positions in other countries.

What’s your point?

No idea where “half the economies of countries” is coming from? Citation needed..

[MPlus88]

The root cause is more than attitude.

[perfecthjrjth]

This remark applies to all IT outsourcing companies: more billable hours. Love to see how a Chinese IT outsourcing company fares in contrast with TCS, Wipro, Infosys of the world.

[starky]

It is a lot about building relationships with vendors in China. I've dealt with the same issues you describe here with most of my Chinese vendors, usually putting up with them because they were cheap. Those we stuck with are now our best vendors because they realize that it is just easiest to do it properly the first time. I have one vendor that causes our sourcing team to tremble in fear about because of how risky they appear to be, but nobody can beat their prices, service, and quality to us.

[brmgb]

The issue of India has always been that it has some serious cultural obstacles to overcome and very little interest in doing so.

Society remains deeply segregated with the caste system being a drag on everything. Religious intelorance is very high and the policians in power seem all to happy to stroke the flame of islamophabia rather than work on solving the actual country problems. Corruption is a reality everywhere and at all levels.

[smoldesu]

China's government effectively owns all of those factories. When something goes wrong, they put their hands directly into the machine to fix it.

Hopefully India's government doesn't follow in their footsteps, Apple's Chinese manufacturers have a spotty track record vis-a-vis exploiting executive power.

[hangonhn]

It's actually the opposite that's true. It was when the Chinese government let go of economy that China got good at manufacturing. I do wonder if India's legacy of heavy state intervention might be the cause of the current issue (from the little that I know about India) and if they would follow a similar trajectory as more companies start to compete. I don't know enough about India to comment on the latter part but my family is ethnic Chinese and we own factories in China. State intervention is definitely not why manufacturing improved in China. There is fierce competition among the companies. Talented managers and leaders are lured away with big salary increases or start their own companies, etc. Ironically, in the beginning a lot of managers who worked for state companies were lured away by enterprising business people to get their factories started. Those same managers would quickly ram up and become more productive once they were motivated with bonuses and freedom to manage, etc.

I would not be too negative on India. I don't see a reason why things won't improve with enough time and motivation.

[rmah]

Having dealt with multiple electronics component and assembly factories in china... um, no. The government does not "effectively own" all those factories. And no, they do not step in to fix problems.

[FpUser]

So they're fixing gazillion of individual shops that do the business? I think you give way too much credit.

[PragmaticPulp]

> I am an entrepreneur & a small business owner in India. I did a small manufacturing in China & was blown away by their professionalism. The article mentions - `Chinese suppliers had a totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino company’s expectations` - this is so true.

This varies massively from one CM to the next.

If you can get your foot in the door at the higher tier CMs, the professionalism and attention to detail will be exactly as you described. If you can get in contact with an ambitious smaller CM looking to grow with you (their customer), you can also find great attention to detail.

OTOH, some of the smaller CMs in China will gladly tell you whatever you need to hear in order to send the wire transfer, then you'll get back whatever they feel like delivering. That is if you don't get bumped by a higher paying customer taking your spot on their schedule. You might also get great first articles and have great success on the first prototype run, but then they'll take the A team off of your line and have the night shift run it next time with much less attention to detail.

[kalesh]

Not my experience. I was working on my clothing startup with initial investment of about ~$30,000 USD.

INDIA - Met at least 12-15 manufactures in India (medium to large scale, $1m ARR to $50m ARR). Only a 1-2 of these had any catalogs or samples of different fabric compositions. Most wanted an advance to kick-start the process. Sampling was a total failure with three of these.

CHINA - Contacted about 10 manufactures in China via Alibaba. Each one of them had a very detailed catalog of anywhere in between 10-50 fabric compositions. Shipped to my home in a week for just $100.

It was Peru where I got the garments manufactured. It did cost me about 20-30% more but it was very satisfactory.

[esperent]

Surprising twist at the end there. How did the professionalism and quality in Peru compare to the other places?

[nequo]

Why did you end up going with a Peruvian supplier instead of a Chinese one?

[kalesh]

Peruvian supplier could produce the pima cotton fabric.

[crote]

I've got the same experience.

Chinese manufacturers can do absolutely amazing work - provided you can get them to care. In general they'll manufacture exactly what you ask them to. They are also very happy to do manual labour to get the job done.

But for most stuff, don't expect too much feedback. Asking for feedback on a design to optimize it for production didn't really produce anything useful, and they manufactured designs which contained obvious mistakes.

In general, you simply get what you pay for!

[serf]

>I never visited China & the manufacturing went perfect.

it's about the type of manufacturing that these groups are used for.

My father took his bicycle part manufacturing to China in the early 90s and had his IP and design-work ripped off and duplicated to the point of making his formerly successful business largely insolvent -- this taught him the value of keeping the assembly and finishing work in-house, but unfortunately that lesson came too late for his ventures.

Same story with an exercise equipment MFG that I did design work for more recently. The joke at the table was "OK, we can get the bulk manufactured for X in (Chinese province)... but how long until we see these for sale on Taobao?"

[treeman79]

Back to the future has a famous scene where Doc says Japan produces junk. And Marty says they make the best stuff. Reflecting the state of Japan between 1955 and 1985z

Idea is to produce whatever crap you can initially just to get started. Eventually you’ll get better. China is in middle of this cycle.

[kalesh]

We have been writing software for decades. Still majority of the software engineers are only good at copy & paste. Things are actually getting worse as most answers you can google, when you can't they are just stuck.

[edgyquant]

There’s a different between a developer and an engineer.

[ChuckNorris89]

Meh. Potato potato. Engineering titles usually means having an engineering degree, at leat in my part of Europe, which usually means having graduated from a technician university.

Just because your job description calls you a software engineer instead of software developer doesn't make you an engineer in the traditional sense. It's as much value as your job calling you a "senior" after 3 years of experience just to pay you less. As long as your titles aren't transferable between jobs, then they're not real titles.

So I don't get why people argue about these titles. Software engineering is often just overrated digital plumbing work anyway.

To me engineering means doing more safety critical work, similar to designing and building bridges, where people's lives are also on the line, so valid credentials and titles from accredited bodies matter.

What do you think is the difference between dev and engineer then?

I personally don't care about titles or credentials in this racket. Call me a dev, call me an engineer, you can even call ma a clown, i don't care as long as you pay me what I ask.

[rr888]

This can be overcome. I know in the UK it was similar, 60s and 70s manufacturing quality was very poor. In the 80s factories started with quality management processes, 9001 etc and quality really dramatically improved.

[CommanderData]

The work ethnic thing is a real shame because I've seen this reflected through the consultancies I deal with.

It is just unbothered with a lack of pride from an engineering and effort stand point. Important not to generalise as there are the odd shining examples that come through.

Similarly in medicine in India, not a single drug has been developed in India that has come to market though it is a manufacturing centre house for cheap generics, how safe they are I'm very unsure.

[vivegi]

> not a single drug has been developed in India that has come to market

Not true.

<excerpt> The first modern synthetic drug to be developed in India was Urea Stibamine in 1922 by UN Brahmachari against visceral leishmaniasis.3 Visceral leishmaniasis was a severe health burden during the early part of the 20th century, and it was a life saving drug for a large section of the population. Historically, it was the second drug developed against an infectious disease after Salversan (against Syphillis) and well before penicillin or sulfa drugs. It is still in use in many countries in a modified form.

...

In spite of many odds, Indian pharmaceutical and biotech companies have been able to pile up an impressive array of more than 120 new chemical entities (NCEs) currently progressing in various preclinical and clinical stages of developments. A few examples are given below. In June 2013, Zydus Cadila launched saroglitazar (Lipaglyn), the first glitazar in the world to be approved for the treatment of dyslipidemia or hypertriglyceridemia in patients with type 2 diabetes. The drug, a dual peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) agonist, controls lipids by reducing triglycerides and LDL cholesterol and increasing HDL cholesterol. It also shows considerable reduction in fasting plasma glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin in a 4 mg daily dose. Earlier, in April 2012, Ranbaxy launched India’s first domestically developed antimalarial drug, Synriam. A fixed dose combination of arterolane with piperaquine, Synriam was developed as a simplified single-dose once-a-day therapy for 3 days for the treatment of acute, uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in adults.

...

Twelve new drugs have gotten Drug Controller General (India) approval from CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, that includes “Centchroman”, marketed as “Saheli”, a nonsteroidal oral contraceptive pill.7 A synthetic antimalarial molecule of the endoperoxide family 97/78 from this institute is currently undergoing phase I clinical trial. In the cardiovascular area, two synthetic molecules, S007-867 and S002-333, have been developed as potent inhibitors of collagen induced platelet adhesion and aggregation that can find therapeutic applications in patients of coronary artery disease and thrombotic cerebral stroke. CSIR-IIIM, Jammu, in partnership with Cadila Pharmaceuticals, has developed a new combination drug for TB in 2009, named Risorine.8 In CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, an herbal formulation has been developed for the treatment of benign prostate hyperplasia9 and is currently being marketed under the brand name “Prostalyn”. Bacosides-enriched standardized extract of the herb Bacopa monnieri, commonly known as Brahmi, has been developed by CSIR-CDRI, Lucknow, to enhance memory and learning. The product that has been licensed to M/s Lumen Marketing Co., Chennai, is being sold under different brand names in different Asian and European countries. In the area of biologicals, CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, developed recombinant streptokinase, a “smart” clot buster that has been licensed to Nostrum, a USA based company. The protein therapeutic is being progressed through the clinical phases in India. </excerpt>

Reference:

Balganesh T, Kundu TK, Chakraborty TK, Roy S. Drug discovery research in India: current state and future prospects. ACS Med Chem Lett. 2014 May 23;5(7):724-6. doi: 10.1021/ml500183c. PMID: 25050153; PMCID: PMC4094254. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4094254/

[fennecfoxy]

Isn't China known for crappy stuff like selling say, several tonnes of copper only to find out upon delivery that the purity is absolute shit?

My only personal experience with Chinese manufacturing is a company I worked for having a case for a product manufactured there, had our own industrial designer who came up with something beautiful, found a manufacturer and started getting sample cases in then eventually larger batches.

2 months later, we see our company's case listed all over Alibaba/Aliexpress.

Of course Apple gets good results from China, they have the $$$ to avoid the usual scams/corruption. But a smaller business/start-up will still be taken advantage of, imo.

And say you want to start a business there, doesn't Chinese law still stipulate that 51% of any business in China has to be owned by your Chinese partner? If I move to China right now and start a life there I don't believe I'd be allowed to start a business.

[garyfirestorm]

Do you mean they lack the skills and don’t fully comprehend the requirements? How do you ship without doing QC and do you not implement a feedback system to identify the problematic source?