Expecting the Unexpected, Part II

The much anticipated part II:6.    No one can control Chinese workers around national holidays.Despite the iron fist that most use to control their workers the rest of the year, Chinese New Year is the exception.  Workers rule with their feet.  They leave when they want and come back when they want.  With a real labor shortage here for the last two years most workers know that they will have jobs waiting for them when they get back.  Whenever that maybe.  And, if there still work too close to the holiday, many will just leave.While the three big holidays are now changing into 1 big holiday and a number of other little breaks like the rest of the world, Chinese New Year is still the biggest deal.  Imaging having summer vacation, Thanksgiving and Christmas all in the same 10-day period and then x what ever traffic you can imagine by 100% and that’s CNY.This year, we’ve had a number of factories tell us that if we didn’t have our orders and deposits in by Dec 31st then they wouldn’t take them until after CNY because everyone would have gone home (because they had nothing to do).Some factories are already on holiday.  Many will leave as early as this week.  Some start this weekend.  Most start next week sometime.  But no one will be back before February and many won't be back until the 15th.For some reason, it seems that CNY is always a big shock to everyone every year.  Hello!  It’s annual—you can plan for this.   Sure, it follows the lunar calendar so it's not a fixed dates but Easter and Thanksgiving back home move each year too and we still manage to get those right.  This just takes some planning—admittedly, factories often don’t know before New Year’s day when their CNY breaks will be but you can (and should) block off the two weeks surrounding Chinese New Year months in advance each year.7.    Everything NOT specifically detailed in the contract will be charged back to you or substituted at the lowest possible cost by the supplier.This isn’t Chinese, it’s everywhere.  That’s the point of contracts, right?  But in China it seems like there are myriad expenses and millions of variations in component quality that you’d not even think existed let alone you’d need to specify or contract.  The problem here is that often you’re not asked about unspecified details, they just plug in the cheapest option (and maybe charge you for better).So this problem, like most of them, really turns into a communication and presence issue rather than a contract issue.  Possession is 9/10ths of the law and that’s how it works here too—if you are here, if you are seeing it, talking about it, watching it—you get exactly what you expect.  If not?  Someone else with different motivations/agendas is making decisions about your money and product.8.    Build in extra time for every stage—even if it pushes you past your deadline.Add extra time into EVERYTHING.  Even if it’s something you’ve a number of times before.  Especially if production schedules are near any holiday or during typhoon season.  You think I’m joking; I’m not.  Typhoons along the coast always give us at least one delay a year.If the factory is telling us 20 days, we say 23. If the shipper says 16 days we say 21.  If the United States Post Office says two weeks, we say a month and a half. (Don’t ever send anything to China via the USPO.  If it ever does get here, it’ll be crushed beyond recognition, it will have been poked, prodded and “customed,” it will cost you an arm and a leg even if you’ve already paid for it on the other end—and that’s if they don’t loose it first!).The most difficult times to schedule out are sample times.  Don’t ever ever ever commit to a delivery date if part of the time includes time for samples.  Especially if the product is a first time item that has never been made before.  Factories are notoriously overly optimistic in what they can do and foreigners are notoriously trusting of what people say.  That’s a bad combination if you’ve got to get product into Wal Mart within a 24-hour window.  Even simple adjustments can take weeks (there’s a reason you’ve never seen your idea before—chances are someone thought it up but couldn’t pull it off).Another thing that we see foreigners do often, never to good ends either, is to assume that since general production times at large Chinese factories are overall so quick that late changes to “one little thing” will not make any difference.  WRONG!  Even the smallest of changes, if not specified prior to production starts can cause days or weeks of delay.  Materials are bought, cut, printed, dyed, molded, painted prior to final assembly and if you change one piece, the color of a molded part for example, you may delay the entire assembly line while they remix paint/dye or while they remake the entire piece because it was all ready all painted.9.    Either specify up front or fix it later.Similar to the situation with art and contracts, if you have specs that you’re not totally, well, specific, on then you’re going to have to fix it or change it later.  No if, and’s or but’s about it.  If there is a dimension or measurement that you’ve not specified someone else is going to have to guess.  And you have no clue who that someone is, what their experience is or what their motivations are (Cost? Quality? Timely production?).  If you ever think, “oh, this is just obvious, I don’t need to spec it out” you’ve actually just added a delay, a cost increase and probably an argument into your project.  Way to go!10.    Double confirm that you are talking about the same thing.Unless you are sitting in the factory yourself, there is really no way to confirm that you both talking about the same things.  Cameras and art are great, but not everything translates like you expect.  Taking a train/plane/taxi for a couple hours to sit down with the factory for a morning is worth the cost—unless two to four weeks of digital communications and a(nother) round of incorrect samples is your idea of a good use of time.  Really, talking face-to-face will save you weeks—not days, not hours but weeks.But you absolutely can’t be here to double check yourself then make the factory describe back to you what they are doing.  Make them commit, in writing, to the updates/changes/next steps and get a date and responsible individual for each item.Just because you sent a sample, a set of digital spec’s and even CAD or other 3D files doesn’t mean that you are all talking about the same thing nor does it guarantee that, even if you are talking about the same thing, both sides each what the other side is talking about.The more you double check, the less you’ll have to pay for when mistakes are made later.  It’s just that simple.11.    Assume that everything will NOT go according to plan and plan accordingly.You will not get samples on time.  You will not get colors, packaging and art correct the first time.  You will not get the quality you thought you were getting the first time.  If you know this going in, life is much less stress full later on.  So plan on problems and you’ll be happier, more prepared and have the time/temperament to deal with them.12.    Anything less than a signed stamped “YES” is a “NO.”  And even a contract is only as good as the verification/enforcement.You know contracts don’t mean much here.  So if the contract is the beat-all end-all of legal documents why would emails, MSN chats or Skype notes be enough to convey production changes?  Hint: they’re not.  Like anything else, you first of all want to see it in writing to confirm that it’s both received and understood.  Then, second, you want someone that is actually responsible (for more than their sales commission) to confirm that the changes/updates are received and understood.  And finally you need at least one, not more, people to confirm what change the change/update will have on both price and production time.  Sales managers or reps are not the people that can give you these assurances.  They will agree with just about everything you ask for, unless you ask for a signed commitment from them—then they will have to go talk with a manager (which is whom you want to talk with anyway).It’s a small thing to have the sales rep get a manager to sign off on changes/updates, but it can make a huge difference in what you eventually get/pay for.  So get all commitments signed, stamped and faxed back to you.Now you'v got it signed, they confirmed it's going to happen.  You're safe, right?  Nope.  You still need to verify that everything is actually done like it was agreed to.Good luck!