I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a client who buys from a China factory. We were discussing how Chinese people are generally not good “system thinkers”.

The problem is, the satisfactory completion of an order usually depends on a few key people, such as:

• The old guy who does the setups but doesn’t document them
• The salesperson who remembers what is important for the customer and repeats it every time to production people
• The owner’s wife who keeps an eye on production quality

The problem is, what happens when these key people switch jobs, retire, or get busy on something else? The same thing as when the chef of a good restaurant walks away (See this good article on China Law Blog on this exact topic).

Many small/midsize buyers are working with a factory that has a poor system BUT whose boss has a relatively good attitude. The buyer doesn’t have the weight to push the factory to put the right systems in place.

In that case, the question is: can the customer do something to put a system in place through their ordering process?

Yes, absolutely. This is the topic of most articles I have written on this blog! Here are a few examples:

• Detailed specification sheet, prepared by the buyer
• Classification of potential defects in terms of severity, prepared by the buyer
• Clear communication to the factory’s key people
• Documentation of key setup parameters, requested by the buyer (who often needs to be on site for this)
• Making sure final payment is sent after a passed final inspection

I touch on this, and other key points, on the articles listed in this page, as well as in the e-book I wrote a few years ago.

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What do you think? What do you think is the most important in such a case?