One of my clients is an Airbus supplier with factories in France and China. Having visited both, I can assure you that they are nearly impossible to tell apart. Becoming an authorized Airbus/Boeing supplier is no easy task (requires a year+ certification process).

Is?

They haven't delivered a single passenger jet.

When I step into an Apples store in China at first I can't tell the ones in China and USA apart either. Until I started to talk with the staff and do some maintenance with my gadgets, that's when the night and day differences started to kick in (attitude, knowledge, professionalism, etc.)

Again, the problem with China is never the hardware, but the software (including human resources and its "working culture")

China has been producing the MA60, a commercial turboprop regional aircraft, for a number of years. Interestingly, the few Chinese airlines that have them mostly just park them. Perhaps they know something we don't. :eek: Some are in use outside China. Admittedly, this is not a jet.

China would like to get into larger jet aircraft of its own, though production of Airbus 320 in China has already been done, from components sourced from various places. So I guess validity of the comment "they haven't delivered a single passenger jet" depends on how you want to interpret the situation. ;)

"Never" is a mighty big word, and in this usage inaccurate. Of course there are problems with hardware as well as software and operations. Sometimes both in the same product.

The new schedule for the Jinghu line is out and I like it. In particular, G3/4 do the run in 4:48 (single stop in Nanjing) and leave in the afternoon (much better than 8/9a).

"Final assembly" by a couple hundred Chinese managed by an equal amount
of Airbus foreign employees doesn't come close to "production" in China.

More like a token gesture to get more orders in the largest emerging
market.

This is similar to the point I was attempting to make in post 182. The airbus supplier I referenced carries a heavy expat staff that doesn't cut corners. In fact, from my perspective, the Chinese factory is more efficient than their facilities in France and Morocco. Meanwhile, my cousin is working on the new BMW plant in Shenyang. Based on his descriptions, that is an air tight ship; the fact that the worker bees are Chinese (as opposed to German) matters not in his opinion.

Yes, many Chinese managers have a heavy tendency to try to cut material and machinery etc. costs beyond safety levels. In effect, replace existing materials with cheaper but unreliable ones and/or neglect using latest production technology due to high operation costs.

Also, quite a few Chinese company owners view joint ventures and FDI only as means to channel money into their own and family accounts. The goal is often not to really set up a long or even medium term partnership but to use the age old strategems to relieve the foreign investors of their cash and then move on to the next victim.

On the other hand, you still get companies in Korea where the first thing the owner does after receiving an investment is to buy a plane ticket to an undisclosed location and disappear with the money.

Don't doubt the facilities are spotless, the workers are diligent, the end product exceeds expectations.

A classic example...The Penisula Hotel Hong Kong.

Coincidentally this is where I spend my work weeks. The air tight ship is probably the portions that are managed by westerners. Some of the areas managed locally, might be described at best as leaking.

Yes, this is a good point.

Previous posts have trotted out examples some of the big foreign names that are producing in China, but it's disingenuous to represent those examples as indicative of the current state of Chinese product manufacturing as a whole. We must remember that in the entire Chinese Production Universe, the overwhelming majority of products are cranked out by completely local enterprises without managerial involvement of the Fortune 500.

Furthermore, when decent products come out of factories, even WFOE or joint venture enterprises, it is usually because of training and quality control, and frankly, a good dose of continuous @ss-kicking by foreign managers. In other words, top-down. I have yet to see a major enterprise in China produce quality goods on the strength of bottom-up cultural tendencies of the average individual. And in China, the average individual worker or manager is not perfection-driven (a la the Japanese), but rather to do the minimum possible to "get by" or to solve a problem with a quick-fix short term solution that may have serious long-term consequences.

Haier
Lenovo

good quality..

Your definition of "good quality" is different than mine! I would use these products in China if I had to (i.e. provided to me by a landlord or company), but I would not choose these if putting out my own cash and particularly not for something outside China.

You might already be putting out your cash and not know it.

Haier makes freezers for GE, Kenmore, some units for Maytag and Amana.
Also small appliances, such as microwaves and wine coolers labeled with
other brand names.