傻冒儿 Stupid Hat aka ShaMao'er

Sourcing II

My new position is often related to sourcing so I will probably post more often on what I am seeing on this topic. 
Our new client is a giant industrial products company (to remain unnamed).  They recently brought in a new Executive Vice President for Procurement from another industry.  One of his first key initiatives was to look at more direct sourcing from LCC  (Low Cost Countries).  So one of the first things he did was to take a look at the existing China procurement center.  Now this new EVP has quite a bit of experience in China so he at least had an idea of what to look for.  Sure enough he uncovered systemic endemic corruption in all parts of the supplier selection and contracting processes.  Just about the entire organization is being replaced.

Why?  Because the controls put into place over the Chine procurement office were both looser than what existed in the US (to compensate for "business culture differences" in China) and those controls that did exist carried within them Western assumptions.  They had been designed at HQ to guide and monitor western employees through the procurement process.  They do not in any way take into consideration the often very different drivers and priorities of Chinese employees.  Until companies begin to tailor their controls to local conditions, their procurement operations will never improve.

No more human faces with animal heart

Could the Chinese government handle the PR over Tibet any worse?  You would really think that they would learn.  There must be someone at the Ministry of Information under the age of 50 who would have some idea of how to present things for foreign consumption.  They honestly don't seem to have improved much since the 1970's.  A good start would be not to translate directly comments/phrases that are used in domestic media... i.e. a monster with a human face and  an animal's heart.  I have a feeling that the original Chinese does convey exactly the same meaning as the translation.  You'd think they would know that after 30+ years.   

I know so many Chinese in China who have a pretty fair understanding of how westerners think and who could write statements that would be far less grating (and at times just plain twilight zone level weird) to Western ears.  There are even enough American and other Western traitors working at the China Daily that you could get one of them to do it.  Must be the typical mis allocation of resources common to any centrally planned economy. 

I guess ShaMao should finally make his opinion known regarding the recent events in Tibet.  I've been meaning to for several days now.

So here are a few of my thoughts on the issue:

1)  I have never been very interested in Tibet or Tibetans.  Unlike some Westerners I have met, there is nothing I have learned about Tibet that draws me there.  Sure, it has stunning scenery no doubt, but so do so many places in the world.  Everything I have ever read about the traditional Tibetan culture and religion Westerners (and even some Chinese  I have met) like to gush about, suggests it to be even more anachronistic than most religions.  I have little respect for willful primitivism.   I do not believe the Tibetans have found the secret to life or anything else (except how to make musical instruments of human bones maybe...). 

2) The Tibetans don't have much of a leg to stand on in terms of wanting independence.  Of all the stateless peoples in the world I would say they are certainly well in the bottom half of likely to succeed.  Just about the only thing I can think of that would be guaranteed to spark popular revolution in China would be for the Chinese government to allow the secession of Tibet or any other substantial piece of Chinese territory.   I'm not sure what the current demographics look like, but I suspect the Tibetans are probably close to outnumbered these days anyways.  It is just not going to happen for them.  But they might win some kind of concessions since its the Olympics year.  Of course there would probably be a quiet crackdown as soon as the Closing Ceremonies are over. 

3)  I could not fucking believe that the first article about this I saw on CNN (other than the ticker at the bottom of the screen) featured Richard Gere in a 5 minute interview as the "expert".  How many real experts are there on Tibet and even Tibetan/Chinese relations in our universities and they choose that idiot. 

Gratitude

Sea Alarms set

The final two buoys for a tsunami alert network are deployed

Another little gift to the world from the American taxpayer.  I wonder how much thanks we'll get?
That much you think??

The Candidates

I spent some time over the past weekend looking into our Presidential candidates a bit more. 

McCain:  I have been a McCain supporter for many years (I even gave him a small contribution back last summer when he was essentially written off), but some of his recent (pandering to the Right) speeches and the like had bothered me so I wanted to go back to the basics.  I can say that I had never given John McCain a second of thought before I heard an interview with him maybe 10 years ago on an NPR show.  The interview lasted for a full hour and was entirely devoted to a discussion of Ernest Hemingway novels and characters.   Suffice it to say that I was both very impressed and very intrigued.  Here was a US Senator talking in a very intelligent and passionate manner for an hour on a relatively esoteric subject without, as far as I recall, any mention of current events or anything else that could be used for campaign purposes.  After hearing that, I began to pay some attention to Senator McCain and the more I learned of his positions the more I liked him.  I was an enthusiastic supporter in 2000.   I have done some Googling but am unable to find a link to that NPR show, I would really like to hear it again.  However, I did find this interview, done in 2002 when he was not campaigning for anything, that I think gets at his character as well. 

Senator John McCain

Obama:  Enter Barack Obama.  I don't think I knew anything of the man until maybe a year or so ago when his name entered the media mainstream.  I had no intention of even thinking of supporting him until I began to see him speak.  There are two main reasons that I would now consider voting for him. 

One, the man is truly an inspirational speaker.  The power of the presidency is largely that of the bully pulpit and here is a man who may be able to inspire enough of the American public (doesn't need to be too many) to begin to care that members of Congress will need to move on many issues in larger steps than would normally be the case.  Now, I am pretty much a conservative on most issues, but I do think that it may be necessary now and then to have a progressive liberal type consensus take charge for a short period and push the country a little bit harder in the general direction it needs to go to protect and enhance America's unique society.  I think of some of the domestic policies of the Johnson administration as an example.  After that hard nudge in the right direction, more conservative leaders can hopefully guide the ship in a responsible fashion until it has once again strayed off course to far.

Second, having lived for some time outside of the US, I am particularly sensitive to America's image abroad.  While America's soft power in many ways is not eroding at all (in fact I think it might be said that the 21st century will truly be America's century in that the emerging global culture seen in so many places around the world is essentially American in character), I do believe that some of the more beneficial aspects of that soft power have been diminished over the past some years.  It is depressingly common to see foreign tyrants, corrupt politicians, evil businesspeople, religious zealots, and a host of other deprave characters try to justify their actions by pointing to superficially similar actions by America and its leaders.  Of course, in most cases a few minutes of research will demonstrate the the scale of the evilness (whatever it is) is not comparable, these facile comparisons made in sound bytes on overseas media to have an effect on how America is perceived.  The election of someone of the background (both racial and personal history) of someone like Barack Obama is about as powerful a pro-American visual soundbyte (can u say that?) as I can think of.

I found this nice talk with Obama from a few years ago.  I would encourage anyone interested to watch it.  By the way, the website is just great too.

Conversation with Barack Obama

Clinton:  I do not support Hillary Clinton.  Though I do not deny her obvious intellect, I simply feel her to be too inauthentic and divisive to support.

So where does this leave me?  I am happy to still have another 6 months before the November election to think on it some more.  Right now, I am concerned about McCain's age.  When I see him recently he often seems like an old man, repeating himself and perhaps becoming a bit more close minded.  When I see Obama, I am concerned that he may be a bit too liberal for me (by too liberal I mean does not appreciate the role of personal responsibility to the extent I consider appropriate).  I am also concerned that he simply does not have enough relevant experience to adequately prepare him for the job.  I would be much happier if he had at least a full Senate term under his belt.

In any event, Americans are fortunate to have the opportunity to choose this year between candidates of a higher quality than I think has been seen in some time.   

Sourcing

I was doing some research yesterday on manufacturing quality control better practice in China when I came across the Sept 2007 Congressional testimony of Mattel CEO Robert Eckert regarding the lead paint related recalls of Chinese made toys.   The testimony was very interesting, I was surprised at the level of detail regarding Mattel's operations. 

The last I remembered, Mattel had issued an "apology" to China, saying that the recalls were the result of its own "design failures".  I remember thinking when I heard that that it was typical China ass-kissing by Western corporations.  It turns out that with a close reading of the "apology" one learns that it refers only to the loose magnet related recalls and not to the lead paint. 

There were 3 main reasons given for the lead paint issue.  All of these should be familiar to anyone with responsibility for procurement in China, but usually aren't familiar at all:

1) Use of undisclosed subcontractors by approved vendors
2) Use of undisclosed manufacturing facilities by approved vendors
3) The sale by a subcontractor of approved paint provided by Mattel to its vendor (who then provided it to the subcontractor) and then substitution with inferior (in this case lead tainted) paint

This follows on nicely from a meeting I had last night with a major global corporation who runs a large fleet of vehicles and found a very high level of non-conformance in safety related parts it purchased in China.  In that case there was an issue of undisclosed subcontracting and substitution of components as well.

With the proper controls in place, it is perfectly possible to realize low-cost savings while ensuring consistent quality.  Unfortunately, company after company after company is sourcing in China and company after company after company makes the same errors.  Its really quite depressing.    

Question of the Day

Question of the Day:  Is there any day of the year that is not a Muslim holiday?