Control process not China is issue in toy debacle

“The industrial sector doesn’t have the same pressures on it as the fast-moving toy market,” commented Cheng Yoe of Huntingdon-based Components Bureau. “The products we deal in are not fashion statements. Our products often have had the same production lines for years. They are tried and tested as opposed to something that is being made in response to the latest fad or demand. I mean, with these toy factories, one week they can be making Bob the Builder, the next, everyone wants Transformers." Yoe points to the established names that have been profitably manufacturing industrial electronics equipment in China for over a decade: “Companies from Taiwan, Japan and Korea have been investing in China for over ten years with big Japanese companies like NEC and Hitachi successfully manufacturing in China since the early nineties. The checks that are in place are now well established and are the result of a real desire to take great care in producing a good product.&rdquo In the first quarter of 2007 the EU became China’s largest market for machinery and electronic products with exports at $32.31 billion; is there a danger that this recent negative focus will prove bad for business? “I don’t envisage any problems at all,” Yoe replies emphatically. “The electronics manufacturing sector in Hong-Kong and China, as far as the factories that we deal with are concerned, has the most stringent checks and quality controls already in place - their business depends on it. After all, you don’t get paid for faulty goods and a recall is an expensive business!” Luis Capelo is European Marketing Manager for Components Bureau‘s Asian partners SMT which, with four factories across China and Hong-Kong, employs a total staff of more than 12,000. The factories can call on in-house RoHS, China RoHS testing and compliance facilities, every ISO necessary and they also implement a strict six sigma strategy, ”We want the world to know that we can compete globally on quality as well as on price,” he states. “We have a reputation we are proud of and expect to grow from that.” So would a recall scandal on the Mattel scale never occur in the electronics sector? “Of course you should never say never,” Yoe smiles. “And I’m sure if you looked you could find as many dodgy factories producing pcb’s in Europe as you could in China, but why would you want to enter into any kind of business partnership with a company that didn’t reflect your own standards? It simply doesn’t make sense “There’s been a huge over-reaction to this toy recall because of the emotive nature of the goods involved, but companies have a simple choice: either cut China out of the equation and accept they will have to pay more for their manufacture and production, or invest more time sorting out their process and control systems. It’s not rocket science.”

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