Henri Parmentier

Sales director at Technexion

hmm, after reading this http://www.nkt-led.com/news/2009/0707/166.html , on your own website... what would you think??

I have done business with multiple companies in China, mostly Shenzhen.. the results are unhappy customers and bad products. China is indeed a great hub for manufacturing, but don't expect high innovation or quality, I'll stick with Taiwanese manufacturers, at least they know what they talk about. Also "Certification" has another meaning in China compared to the rest of the world, from the hundreds of so "UL certified" products.. maybe one has a real certification, and the rest copied the product AND certification. As long as Chinese government doesn't crack down on such things peoples trust will stay low.

Jan Kemeling

LEDZWORLD TECHNOLOGY, LED retrofit lamps for professionals

The Chinese are definitely capable of producing high quality, but only when they receive directions from their clients as to how to improve the quality. I have visited well over 40 LED factories in China, mostly in the south of China ;Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, but also in Wenzhou, Xiamen, Hangzghou and Shanghai. The result? I found many nice factories, most of them had nice buildings, nice equipment but zero investments in R&D staff, designers etc as they tend to invest in tangible assets only. Most factories posess some knowledge on LED but most are lacking the whole overview. Most factories use poorly designed electronics that do not match the LED chips and the binning is generally spoken extremely poor, resulting in wrong light colours, inconsistent colours, drivers that do not last, overheating, poor beam angles due to lack of investments in optical lens knowledge etc etc
In short; one can produce any product in China, provided that you tell the maker how to make it. Apple also produces in China at a certain quality level that is impressive but few innovations come from these factories , they are usually brought to them with the request to make it.
If these Chinese factories are smart, they start investing heavily in R&D, design or third party service providers to help them with that part. Then they will be unbeatable.
Too many suppliers have just jumped on what they thought would be a great opportunity, but an LED lamps is not like a toaster, with a few standard components that you can put tothether with a screwdriver and little knowledge..
Customers are getting smarter too, they often have more LED knowledge than their suppliers.
China has a long way to go

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Paul Nie

VP at Centre Testing International

I could not agree more with Jan's comments.

LED is now one of the top hottest topics in China, a lot of investment has been made to the production lines and factory facilities, but few goes to R&D and quality assurance. This is something need long time education to both the investors and the market.

But we do see a dramatic changes comparing the consumer electronics and household appliances, every time, when we hold seminars and workshops, no matter it's regulations for Europe (CE marking, EuP, REACH), or USA (UL certification, Energy Star, Ca Title 24), we see a lot of interests from the manufacturers. But it's very obvious that they still know few about what they are working on.

The change has started, let's see how quick it will be.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

winters li

sales at zhejiang huazheng electronic group co.ltd

every country have good qulity products and bad one, the world is whole market, China has a important position at this moment, you could see MADE IN CHINA every country of world, in many kinds of products.We don't deny therer is bad product ,but the chinese manufacturers are trying thier best to improve the quilty,let the world comfortable.But,we need time to do this one step by step,so please trust chinest manufactuerers.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Cliff Tsay

Independent contractor/entrepreneur

I ran into this forum by accident. Here is my take -

If China can make nuclear bomb, satellites, spaceship, I can't believe they can't make quality products.

Yes, you can find some junk products made in USA; yes, you can find some great products made in China. When it comes down to quality, here is one major difference in my view. In US, quality is built in not an option and customers don't necessarily have to pay for it; in China, quality is not necessarily built in, it is optional and customers often have to ask and pay for it.

In US, quality is generally understood by the workers; in China, you have to spend extra time to educate and train the workers. It is about the attitude/mentality/awareness towards quality (i.e. culture) and as many have mentioned at this forum, it does take time to earn it just like Japanese did and it does take time to change the perception of "Made in China" brand. Until then, the whole industry and country will have to pay the price.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Jan Kemeling

LEDZWORLD TECHNOLOGY, LED retrofit lamps for professionals

Like I mentioned; China can make any product and any quality ! But they need to have the right mindset in order to make the right investments. Chinese factories invest in production assets as that is what their bank wants them to and that is what they value more than investing in services, knowledge, R&D.
It will take a long while until factories realise the value is in the people and not in the equipement and buildings they are spending their money on.
Most Chinese factories have zero stock. Not even 10 samples per product, often not even one ! Only if you ask and pay for it, they will make it. Meeting quality standards in LED is for most Chinese LED manufacturers not something that they start working on from the product development stage of the lamps. It is merely a painful realization that they need to modify their products in order to meet these standards. That is a good example of how they develop products. It is all about touch and feel, appearance and perceived quality, not how long the product will last or what applications the products eventually are being used for. Once the container doors are shut, their job and responsibility is done.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Detlef Eobaldt

at LED-consultant.de

I just came across this discussion and wanted to add some of my thoughts to it. Chinese companies do have a lot of potential in manufacturing but I agree with most other people here - R&D is the weak point. I have been in China many times and I used to work with a handful of companies in Shenzhen. It was possible to get what I wanted but I had to be very precisely telling them what I want in order to get a reasonable result. A great quantity of companies simply do copy everything they find, without adding any disciplines to the process. But whoever buys a product in China is doing it for a simple reason, to get it cheaper. Chinese companies could improve quality, but it would make a couple of products more expensive. As long as we try to bring the price down, we have to accept that there is always a reason for this price. Actually I believe that the current situation is also having its good sides, at least we are able to protect our assets when it comes to innovation, state-of-the art technologies and skills in Europe and the US. Instead of bringing those assets over to China, we should protect them in order to maintain our business. Every customer has a choice - buy cheap and accept what you get or buy more expensive and get what you want. To be fair, even in Europe or the US there are a lot of manufacturers selling products which certainly lack a decent R&D. And unfortunately the industry is still not able to set up an industry standard about quality and product excellence which enables non-insiders to distinguish between good and bad products......
Not only in China there is a lot to improve but also here in Europe or in the US..Let's get this done firstly, protect local skills and don't transfer them!

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Jan Kemeling

LEDZWORLD TECHNOLOGY, LED retrofit lamps for professionals

I agree with Detlef. I have lived and worked in China for many years and everyone who has a Western mind and knows CHina a bit better is aware of this. You can't blame the Chinese for poor quality. We should blame the buyers who insist on prices that do not exist, so that the Chinese have no choice but to use cheap components to make it work.
Discounters like the big chains in Europe and USA are to blame.
On the one hand they say they want quality and on the other one hand they want to pay for rubbish. Then you get rubbish and then rubbish producers start to thrive.
Cheap LED lamps however do not exist. As there is no such thing as a good LED lamp that is cheap. An LED lamp is an asset. It is a tool to help the user to save money over a long period of time. And only if this tool will last long, it will be a good buy. If buyers do not want to pay for quality LED lamps it would be better not to buy LED lamps at all. As otherwise it might be the most expensive purchase they have ever made.
I like to focus on quality rather than on price. Quality is what counts in this business

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Cliff Tsay

Independent contractor/entrepreneur

I think this forum has turned into a broader topic," Why can't Chinese make good-quality products", or to be more precise "Why don't Chinese make good-quality products".

The simple answer is that it is a balance of Supply and Demand; as long as customers are willing to buy low-price/low-quality products made in China, low-quality products will always find their market. The in-depth answer is that it is a process of Check and Balance (stick and carrot).

One day, when Chinese manufacturers find out they get more reward for making and selling good-quality products and get severe penalty for making and selling low-quality products, they will gradually forget how to make lousy- quality products. That process happened in Japan (to less degree though) and definitely in Taiwan 30 years ago.

Until then, buyers, be selective and be aware of what you are buying, make sure you have enough risk stomach for poor qualities that are still readily available out of China.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Paul Nie

VP at Centre Testing International

As I am still located in Shenzhen, and the daily work of myself and my team is to address the quality issues (testing, inspection and certification), for both manufacturers and buyers, I will have more to share with you all.

For traditional consumer products, different level of buyers are getting products with different level of quality: Big brand names have their own strict quality procedures, according to the standard of the market place and standard of each individual company, but somehow failure happens like the toys recall cases in 2007. Big EU and US chain stores are the major driving forces for every day low price, for sure they need to pay more attention to the quality, but the standard might be another level, and again, somehow, failure can not be 100% prevented.

For solid state lighting, this will be a totally different new thing. At this moment, there is still no standard available for China market, I just joined a meeting for initiating some new standards with government authority and industry experts last week, it's understandable that you won't see a comprehensive local standard system in short term. So, the only way for the international buyers to get quality products is to bring the quality assurance procedures by themselves.

Look to the SSL producers in China, 40% LED packagers, 40% conventional lighting manufacturers, 20% from anywhere they heard the money making news, few of them are invested by knowledgeable person, then this will need a long learning process for all of them. And many new investment is still surging into this field, they all know that they need to learn from the very beginning.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Cliff Tsay

Independent contractor/entrepreneur

As long as China keeps its open-door policy on foreign trade, the learning curve will be accelerating. The world is flattened now. Manufacturers are first forced to offer quality by customers, then are motivated to offer quality by money, in the end it will be self-motivation towards quality for reputation.

Since the world is flat now, China sooner or later won't be able to offer cheap low-quality products and those cheap-product shoppers will move to Vietnam, India or maybe Africa to get even lower price. China will then inevitably offer higher quality products esp. after having years of learning experience in how to make quality products.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Henri Parmentier

Sales director at Technexion

hmm, after reading this http://www.nkt-led.com/news/2009/0707/166.html , on your own website... what would you think??

I have done business with multiple companies in China, mostly Shenzhen.. the results are unhappy customers and bad products. China is indeed a great hub for manufacturing, but don't expect high innovation or quality, I'll stick with Taiwanese manufacturers, at least they know what they talk about. Also "Certification" has another meaning in China compared to the rest of the world, from the hundreds of so "UL certified" products.. maybe one has a real certification, and the rest copied the product AND certification. As long as Chinese government doesn't crack down on such things peoples trust will stay low.

Jan Kemeling

LEDZWORLD TECHNOLOGY, LED retrofit lamps for professionals

The Chinese are definitely capable of producing high quality, but only when they receive directions from their clients as to how to improve the quality. I have visited well over 40 LED factories in China, mostly in the south of China ;Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, but also in Wenzhou, Xiamen, Hangzghou and Shanghai. The result? I found many nice factories, most of them had nice buildings, nice equipment but zero investments in R&D staff, designers etc as they tend to invest in tangible assets only. Most factories posess some knowledge on LED but most are lacking the whole overview. Most factories use poorly designed electronics that do not match the LED chips and the binning is generally spoken extremely poor, resulting in wrong light colours, inconsistent colours, drivers that do not last, overheating, poor beam angles due to lack of investments in optical lens knowledge etc etc
In short; one can produce any product in China, provided that you tell the maker how to make it. Apple also produces in China at a certain quality level that is impressive but few innovations come from these factories , they are usually brought to them with the request to make it.
If these Chinese factories are smart, they start investing heavily in R&D, design or third party service providers to help them with that part. Then they will be unbeatable.
Too many suppliers have just jumped on what they thought would be a great opportunity, but an LED lamps is not like a toaster, with a few standard components that you can put tothether with a screwdriver and little knowledge..
Customers are getting smarter too, they often have more LED knowledge than their suppliers.
China has a long way to go

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Paul Nie

VP at Centre Testing International

I could not agree more with Jan's comments.

LED is now one of the top hottest topics in China, a lot of investment has been made to the production lines and factory facilities, but few goes to R&D and quality assurance. This is something need long time education to both the investors and the market.

But we do see a dramatic changes comparing the consumer electronics and household appliances, every time, when we hold seminars and workshops, no matter it's regulations for Europe (CE marking, EuP, REACH), or USA (UL certification, Energy Star, Ca Title 24), we see a lot of interests from the manufacturers. But it's very obvious that they still know few about what they are working on.

The change has started, let's see how quick it will be.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

winters li

sales at zhejiang huazheng electronic group co.ltd

every country have good qulity products and bad one, the world is whole market, China has a important position at this moment, you could see MADE IN CHINA every country of world, in many kinds of products.We don't deny therer is bad product ,but the chinese manufacturers are trying thier best to improve the quilty,let the world comfortable.But,we need time to do this one step by step,so please trust chinest manufactuerers.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Cliff Tsay

Independent contractor/entrepreneur

I ran into this forum by accident. Here is my take -

If China can make nuclear bomb, satellites, spaceship, I can't believe they can't make quality products.

Yes, you can find some junk products made in USA; yes, you can find some great products made in China. When it comes down to quality, here is one major difference in my view. In US, quality is built in not an option and customers don't necessarily have to pay for it; in China, quality is not necessarily built in, it is optional and customers often have to ask and pay for it.

In US, quality is generally understood by the workers; in China, you have to spend extra time to educate and train the workers. It is about the attitude/mentality/awareness towards quality (i.e. culture) and as many have mentioned at this forum, it does take time to earn it just like Japanese did and it does take time to change the perception of "Made in China" brand. Until then, the whole industry and country will have to pay the price.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Jan Kemeling

LEDZWORLD TECHNOLOGY, LED retrofit lamps for professionals

Like I mentioned; China can make any product and any quality ! But they need to have the right mindset in order to make the right investments. Chinese factories invest in production assets as that is what their bank wants them to and that is what they value more than investing in services, knowledge, R&D.
It will take a long while until factories realise the value is in the people and not in the equipement and buildings they are spending their money on.
Most Chinese factories have zero stock. Not even 10 samples per product, often not even one ! Only if you ask and pay for it, they will make it. Meeting quality standards in LED is for most Chinese LED manufacturers not something that they start working on from the product development stage of the lamps. It is merely a painful realization that they need to modify their products in order to meet these standards. That is a good example of how they develop products. It is all about touch and feel, appearance and perceived quality, not how long the product will last or what applications the products eventually are being used for. Once the container doors are shut, their job and responsibility is done.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Detlef Eobaldt

at LED-consultant.de

I just came across this discussion and wanted to add some of my thoughts to it. Chinese companies do have a lot of potential in manufacturing but I agree with most other people here - R&D is the weak point. I have been in China many times and I used to work with a handful of companies in Shenzhen. It was possible to get what I wanted but I had to be very precisely telling them what I want in order to get a reasonable result. A great quantity of companies simply do copy everything they find, without adding any disciplines to the process. But whoever buys a product in China is doing it for a simple reason, to get it cheaper. Chinese companies could improve quality, but it would make a couple of products more expensive. As long as we try to bring the price down, we have to accept that there is always a reason for this price. Actually I believe that the current situation is also having its good sides, at least we are able to protect our assets when it comes to innovation, state-of-the art technologies and skills in Europe and the US. Instead of bringing those assets over to China, we should protect them in order to maintain our business. Every customer has a choice - buy cheap and accept what you get or buy more expensive and get what you want. To be fair, even in Europe or the US there are a lot of manufacturers selling products which certainly lack a decent R&D. And unfortunately the industry is still not able to set up an industry standard about quality and product excellence which enables non-insiders to distinguish between good and bad products......
Not only in China there is a lot to improve but also here in Europe or in the US..Let's get this done firstly, protect local skills and don't transfer them!

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Jan Kemeling

LEDZWORLD TECHNOLOGY, LED retrofit lamps for professionals

I agree with Detlef. I have lived and worked in China for many years and everyone who has a Western mind and knows CHina a bit better is aware of this. You can't blame the Chinese for poor quality. We should blame the buyers who insist on prices that do not exist, so that the Chinese have no choice but to use cheap components to make it work.
Discounters like the big chains in Europe and USA are to blame.
On the one hand they say they want quality and on the other one hand they want to pay for rubbish. Then you get rubbish and then rubbish producers start to thrive.
Cheap LED lamps however do not exist. As there is no such thing as a good LED lamp that is cheap. An LED lamp is an asset. It is a tool to help the user to save money over a long period of time. And only if this tool will last long, it will be a good buy. If buyers do not want to pay for quality LED lamps it would be better not to buy LED lamps at all. As otherwise it might be the most expensive purchase they have ever made.
I like to focus on quality rather than on price. Quality is what counts in this business

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Cliff Tsay

Independent contractor/entrepreneur

I think this forum has turned into a broader topic," Why can't Chinese make good-quality products", or to be more precise "Why don't Chinese make good-quality products".

The simple answer is that it is a balance of Supply and Demand; as long as customers are willing to buy low-price/low-quality products made in China, low-quality products will always find their market. The in-depth answer is that it is a process of Check and Balance (stick and carrot).

One day, when Chinese manufacturers find out they get more reward for making and selling good-quality products and get severe penalty for making and selling low-quality products, they will gradually forget how to make lousy- quality products. That process happened in Japan (to less degree though) and definitely in Taiwan 30 years ago.

Until then, buyers, be selective and be aware of what you are buying, make sure you have enough risk stomach for poor qualities that are still readily available out of China.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Paul Nie

VP at Centre Testing International

As I am still located in Shenzhen, and the daily work of myself and my team is to address the quality issues (testing, inspection and certification), for both manufacturers and buyers, I will have more to share with you all.

For traditional consumer products, different level of buyers are getting products with different level of quality: Big brand names have their own strict quality procedures, according to the standard of the market place and standard of each individual company, but somehow failure happens like the toys recall cases in 2007. Big EU and US chain stores are the major driving forces for every day low price, for sure they need to pay more attention to the quality, but the standard might be another level, and again, somehow, failure can not be 100% prevented.

For solid state lighting, this will be a totally different new thing. At this moment, there is still no standard available for China market, I just joined a meeting for initiating some new standards with government authority and industry experts last week, it's understandable that you won't see a comprehensive local standard system in short term. So, the only way for the international buyers to get quality products is to bring the quality assurance procedures by themselves.

Look to the SSL producers in China, 40% LED packagers, 40% conventional lighting manufacturers, 20% from anywhere they heard the money making news, few of them are invested by knowledgeable person, then this will need a long learning process for all of them. And many new investment is still surging into this field, they all know that they need to learn from the very beginning.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Cliff Tsay

Independent contractor/entrepreneur

As long as China keeps its open-door policy on foreign trade, the learning curve will be accelerating. The world is flattened now. Manufacturers are first forced to offer quality by customers, then are motivated to offer quality by money, in the end it will be self-motivation towards quality for reputation.

Since the world is flat now, China sooner or later won't be able to offer cheap low-quality products and those cheap-product shoppers will move to Vietnam, India or maybe Africa to get even lower price. China will then inevitably offer higher quality products esp. after having years of learning experience in how to make quality products.

Posted 7 months ago | Reply Privately

Developer Analyst at TELUS

Nice posting.

Are these thank you cards really important? And do we have to mention that we have a linked account in our resumes?

Thanks

Lisa Mauri Thomas

Resume Expert, Resume Writer, Resume Critiquer, Job Search Strategist, Job Seeker Champion, Career Advice Columnist

Hi Erman,

Thank you cards are a nice touch. As a hiring manager, I always appreciated getting them and helped tip my decision in their favor. Placing your LinkedIN URL on your resume is a personal choice, though it makes sense if your profile specifically supports your job search objective and you use the job search tools within.

Lisa

Gonzalo Jimenez Yamasaki

Project Manager at ENCODE SOLUTIONS SAC

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for the information, I have a question:

What about when you are trying to find a job in a different country? for instance, let´s say that I can legally work in north America (but I live in south America), how can I compete if I have no north American work experience?

Thank you very much for your time,

Best regards,

Gonzalo

Maria Perron

Sr. Recruiter

It is better to say nothing than to say whatever.

Lisa Mauri Thomas

Resume Expert, Resume Writer, Resume Critiquer, Job Search Strategist, Job Seeker Champion, Career Advice Columnist

Hello Gonzalo and Abhishek!

Thank you for your posts, and your patience while I get caught up after the holidays.

Gonzalo, you will still want to tap into your networking connections more than anything else. Who do you know that has connections to US businesses? If no one comes readily to mind, take the next few weeks to build such connections by joining project management and industrial automation or teaching-related discussion groups.

Abhishek, this next bit of advice also applies to you. You already belong to good groups. Expand them, join conversations - not about job searching but in ways that demonstrate your expertise in your field. Watch closely for those that respond in kind, reply back, etc and analyze what their connection is to your direct and indirect goals. Help them get to know you first as a professional. Once you see that they are open to a productive dialogue with you, say a little something about your professional goals. Be clear about how you'd appreciate their advice, and ask for their assistance in connecting you to hiring managers in your field. Once they provide connections or respond positively in some way, have them take a look at your resume and provide company/connection insight based on their insider knowledge, before making the new connection. Only take that next step armed with excellent information and a referral.

It is like a sales relationship - you have to start small, build slowly. Set a good foundation in place. Listen, get to know them, and once they are comfortable with you, only then take things to the next level, all the while offering to help them in any way that they might wish in return. It is about truly helping each other out, over time. If rushed, or too short-term, your connections will likely just feel used and that potential connection will be severed.

Here is a similar article of mine on the topic of effective networking: http://www.linkedin.com/news?Articlechangeyourjob

Good luck to you both!
Lisa

Joy Rankothge

at Export Development Canada

See all Joy's activity »

Stop following Follow Joy

Hello all,

Interesting thread. I hope I am not changing the subject, but what about resume length for Canadian firms? I recently moved to Canada from the US, and have been told that I need to have a 2 page resume. Any thoughts?

I've read arguments saying, that the resume can be 1-3 pages; should be as long as your experiences dictates (within the 3 page limit), white space (needed/overrated) and so on and so forth.

I feel its very subjective. Of course resume's need to be customized for each job, but where do you draw the line to develop the default resume you have on file which you can fwd your contacts, info interviews etc.

In addition, does anyone know of upcoming networking events in Toronto?

thanks,
Indika