Chinese Factory Management As A System
AN INTERESTING TELEPHONE CALL
Some of you may hold I worked in China some years ago, and I continue to fade there as a part of my consultancy in the procurement of machinery and supplies for industrial customers.
Some months ago I received a phone call from a recruiter representing British manufacturing giant Unilever. They wanted me to help put together a factory in China. Their goal was to seek out a China specialist who was familiar with logistics, manufacturing processes, and had a fluency in Mandarin Chinese to help facilitate better communication. Because of my previous work in China, we saw a good fit and began our discussion in earnest on getting me over on contract in China to assist out. As the interviews progressed, I got the chance to instruct with a really great guy named Thorsten, who represented Unilever’s interests in China.
Thorsten’s concerns (quite legitimately) centered around impeccable planning and organization of the project, and he asked me for an overview on how I would proceed from the start. I told him that I would first require some general directives, but that the project would start off mostly as an information-gathering process to assess everyone else’s “take” on the project.
To assist in this undertaking, I drew up a chart of every aspect of the factory including its possible stakeholders and their departments by function. My opinion was to interview as many people as possible in each department or system, and to workout a system by which these folks would be able to communicate, view, and proceed with the factory’s start up.
As it worked out, much to Thorsten’s (and my) dismay, some folks higher up ended up going the cheaper route and decided to hire a local Chinese citizen to head up the factory. I’ve since heard the factory’s startup is experiencing significant delays – which is to be expected – whether headed by local or foreign management.
I wish them well, and retain the door open to further communication.
A BIG TREE
The picture accompanying this article comprises the graphical representation of the proposed factory system, which I drew up in the FreeMind mind mapping software, and later outlined using an suited mind mapping toolkit designed by Inspiration Software,Inc.
While the actual mapping is shown in the characterize, below is a rendering of this chart in text format. Those folks who’ve worked in China may recognize a few things. Otherwise it would take hours to obtain sense of all this.
For your viewing pleasure, I list all the items below, and hope you can appreciate the intricacies of a foreign business startup in a wonderful (albeit complex) land!
Have fun!
- John
THE OUTLINE
Factory as System:
I. Executive Management
A. Operations (internal)
1. Procurement
a. Vendor Management
(1) Monitoring
(a) Logistics
i) Reporting
2. Compliance
a. Environmental
b. Site Safety
3. Security
a. IT Systems Security
(1) Risk Management
(2) Data Maintenance
(a) Remote Shadowing
(b) Local Shadowing
(c) Misfortune Recovery (DR)
(3) Physical Security
(4) Logical Security
(a) Internal Access
i) Access Review
ii) Access Granting
iii) Access Revocation
(b) External Access
i) Access Review
ii) Access Granting
iii) Access Revocation
b. Procedural Security
(1) Proprietary Technology
(2) Communation Security
(3) Physical Product Security
(a) Packaging Goods
(b) Raw Material
(c) Storage
(d) Catalysts Recapture
(e) Chemical
Waste Disposal
(f) Disposal
c. Factory Site Security
(1) Perimeter Security
(a) Property Inspections
(2) Access
(a) Access Granting
(b) Access Review
(c) Access Revocation
d. Staff Security
(1) Background Checks
(2) Security Training
4. Quality
a. Factory Pre-Commissioning
b. Factory Commissioning
c. Factory Production (post-commissioning)
B. Administration
1. Internal Administration
a. General Communication
(1) Telephone
(2) Fax
(3) Office Supply
(4) Computer
b. Facility Management & Repair
(1) Utilities
(a) Water
(b) Gas
(c) Electricity
c. Legal
(1) Production-Related Compliance
(a) Finished Product Compliance
i) Chinese Regulation Compliance
ii) Target Country Compliance
(b) Production Process Compliance
(c) Property & Factory Compliance
(2) Business Compliance
(a) High Commission (Guo Zheng Fu)
(b) Province Level (Sheng)
(c) County Level (Xian)
(d) City Level (Shi)
(e) District Level (Qu)
(f) Unit Level (Dan Wei)
d. Finance
2. External Administration
a. Strategic Relationships
(1) Government Relations
3. Human Resources
a. Chinese Staff
(1) Staff Training
(a) Recent Staff Training
(b) Continuing Education
(2) Benefits Administration
b. Foreign Staff
(1) Benefits Administration
(2) Staff Training
(a) New Staff Training
(b) Continuing Education
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