Intertek's Mr. Francis Yuk--Great Info for New Buyers

Notes from the Global Sources Show in Hong Kong, 21st April.Best new presentation of the show was from Mr. Francis Yuk, the Vice President, North America of Intertek. It's too bad that this isn't a recording as the presentation was really enjoyable.  But here are my notes; it was a great overview of the issues that now influence your testing/QC needs in producing in China. Here are some highlights.

• Recently, in the last 10 years, there has been a shift of priorities from simple price/function/quality to include the issues of Social Compliance/Environmental Protection/Intellectual Property. In addition, there is a much shorter time for the overall production cycle. And despite the increase in the number of smaller buyers, in general, there is increasingly more centralization rather than decentralization in the overall process.

• Because in Western law, the Importer of Record and buyer (who puts it on the shelf) is liable for any safety issues, you need to pull samples yourself—don’t just trust a report or a factory rep to pull something for you. In general, when you test samples, Minor defects should not be more than 4%, Major no more than 2.5%, and Critical cannot exist (0%).

• Mr. Yuk stated that he was traveling last week with Allen Shaw, former head of the US CPSC. He says that there is a bill in congress now to change lead standards from 600ppm to 99ppm—that basically means everything is going to have to be 100% lead free. In addition, China now has it’s own shipping standards for toys and lead content. This has created a huge delay in the shipping of toys out of China (since last year’s recalls). Finally, there is a new US standard for standards violation: 3-strikes and you get criminal prosecution. There is some great information for vendors on the CPSC website.

• China’s new Labor Law is also showing some real teeth already too. In the first quarter of this year, more than a 1000 factories have been closed in Guangdong Province in alone.

• The US C-TPAT has also increased the number of random open-container inspections for ships coming from China into the US.

• And even with all that, it’s going to get even more complicated. The new standard bring promoted by some of the big box stores (Wal Mart, M&S)—is the carbon footprint. This will require suppliers/vendors to document their entire supply chain.

• But remember: QUALITY IS A KNOWN QUANTITY—IT CAN BE TESTED, IT IS ESTABLISHED BY GOVT STANDARDS, IT CAN BE KNOW AND IT CAN BE CONTROLED.  It’s all up to you.