Consumer demand drives quality control in China

When you have a population of 1.3 billion it’s prudent to keep them onside. After all a domestic market of that size has a great deal of spending power. The Chinese consumer is evolving-and fast. In cities across the nation is a growing and sophisticated consumer-class that is stamping its collective foot in wanting the best, the latest, the fastest. But how can this benefit designers and manufacturers In Europe? And can it really offer guarantees of quality and technical expertise?  

Buried deep in an unmapped mountain range is a small, dank cave housing a rather unattractive hobgoblin with a bad leg. His existence is notable however as the only living being on the planet unaware that the Beijing Olympics were the most expensive, iconic and technically perfect Games to date. Unless your experience is a similar one to our small, anti-social friend it was impossible to ignore the message China sent to the rest of the world- basically: “Anything you can do, we can do better- and many times over”. And indeed in splendid, audacious, noisy, technicolor.  For a nation that only forty years ago-the same age as this publication- was still shackled by the tyrannies of Mao Zedong, it was an astonishing achievement, but not a surprising one for those accustomed to dealing with the nation through the decades.

“I guess many people maintained a certain view of China as being content with quite limited manufacturing and quality ambitions,” muses Cheng Yoe. As Managing Director of UK-based outsourcing specialist Components Bureau he has been dealing with electronics manufacturing in the country for over twenty-five years, and seen the sector evolve from a proposition whose only advantage was price to a situation today where it has grown into a more mature sector with an experienced talent pool to now call on to complement that of Europe.  “ The reality of the situation is that the domestic market is demanding increasingly sophisticated appliances and products and as a result  production has been increased and encouraged at the  quality and innovation end of the market.  This will also result in the more reputable manufacturers profiting while ultimately the backstreet sweatshops will disappear. From a design perspective it offers opportunities to tap into real quality allied to the short lead times on offer. Meanwhile, age-old concerns such as IP are being tackled from the government down and again it is very much a story that only the strongest and most compliant will survive to enjoy future business.”

Professor Kei Biu Chan is Chairman and Senior MD of SMT Holdings, Components Bureau’s manufacturing partner in China and Hong-Kong. He is a leading figure in driving innovation and technology into Hong-Kong and China as a whole and was recently recognised by the Chinese government for his work not only in these areas but in pushing green issues to the forefront of HK and Chinese manufacturing, “ We have a hard job to satisfy our domestic market,” he explains, “whereas people only five years ago would have been happy to drive a very basic car, stick shift, four wheels, that kind of thing…now those same people are demanding all the latest innovations, the electric windows, satnav, paddle shifts and that’s simply in the automotive industry! It’s the same across all products, tastes have changed and that’s a good thing for everybody because it means that China must now produce quality and not just quantity!”

Andrew Ferrier, Commercial Manager at Components Bureau concurs; “The China story is evolving to provide new opportunities which UK companies are ideally positioned to exploit. There is a burgeoning  Chinese middle-class, not simply in the big three cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, but throughout so-called second and third tier cities, and the demand for consumer goods is increasing ever faster as younger consumers are anxious to buy into a western-style lifestyle faster than their parents. It would be a shame if manufacturers and designers in Europe failed to take advantage of what China can offer through outdated perceptions. ” So while there may not be an immediate connection between a thousand drummers perfectly in sync and the future of  European electronics manufacture and design, unless you live in a cave and have a pronounced limp, it’s certainly food for thought.