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Quality control issues for products manufactured in China
have become a serious issue for American consumers. Last
fall six Smith School students—one MBA student and five
undergraduates—got a chance to see what really happens in
several Chinese factories as part of a field study trip
arranged through the school’s
Dingman Center for
Entrepreneurship. The tour included factories for Siemens,
the global electronics and engineering company; Mary Kay
cosmetics; and Ting Hsin International, China’s largest
manufacturer of instant noodles, bottled water and biscuits.
At each factory stop, the Smith students peppered
representatives of each company with questions about quality
control, human resources and supply chain management, among
other key business issues. At the Siemens plant, which
manufactures high voltage circuit breakers for electric
utilities, students wanted to know about plant safety, work
hours and benefits for workers.
The students and others in the Dingman delegation were
impressed by what they saw on the Siemens plant floor, where
some 600 employees coiled heavy power cables, assembled
metal parts, and performed testing on large pieces of
equipment used by power companies.
“I noticed that it’s air conditioned, it’s very climate
controlled and everything is very neat and in its place,”
said Nicholas Singer, a Smith School undergraduate. “They
allowed us to look around and go places that on factory
tours in the United States you wouldn’t be able to do.”
Students were also impressed with the Mary Kay cosmetics
plant, which opened in Hangzhou in March 2006. Once they
were on the other side of the factory’s bright pink façade,
students saw large, shiny chrome vats filled with face cream
and watched employees test and package the products, 90
percent of which are sold in China.
Mary Kay officials explained that many of the ingredients
used at the Hangzhou plant come from the same suppliers used
by the company’s U.S. plant in Dallas. Asked how Mary Kay’s
China market differs from that in the U.S., factory
officials said the market for colored products, such as
lipstick and eye shadow, is much smaller in China and that
impacts manufacturing in Hangzhou.
The tour of the Ting Hsin instant noodle factory,
well-known for its Chef Kang brand of noodles, was perhaps
the most visually interesting. The delegation followed a
long assembly line as the noodles went from being wet and
hundreds of feet long, to being separated into single
package sizes and then dried and packaged with spoons and
flavor packets before being placed in bulk boxes for
shipping.
“Seeing all these factories, seeing how they make
different types of products, how they are marketing
different audiences in different provinces, is just
amazing,” said undergraduate Scottie Siu after leaving the
noodle factory.
Trips like these are an important part of the Smith
School’s emphasis on preparing students to succeed in a
global economy. The students were selected for the trip
through the Dingman Center’s Pitch Dingman contest, which
required students to submit proposals on how they would
benefit from the opportunity.
“This is a global economy in which we are operating and
it’s important to understand what labor forces and economic
forces have an impact on global trade,” said Asher Epstein,
managing director of the Dingman Center. “Understanding
factory conditions, quality control, cost of production,
manufacturing capabilities, and assembly issues and
challenges around the world is important for being
competitive in global business.”
The Dingman trip, which also included stops in Suzhou and
Shanghai, concluded in Beijing, where the delegation
attended the final round of the Smith School’s annual China
Business Plan Competition.--JH |
