Once again running out of ChronoVaults

All problems solved, we once again have ChronoVaults!

The rant is still available below for posterity...



We've spent many Christmases entertaining you with China manufacturing rants. It seems this year we're going to have to have a mandatory revival.

We just ordered a new set of all the ChronoVault pieces about a month ago, and we're almost out of product again. Is business going that well? No, what happened is that the manufacturer of the high torque gear motor, despite receiving very detailed specs and even a sample from the old run, thought it would be a good idea to invert the polarity this time around. So all these motors we just received are pretty much useless, as the vault would open instead of close, and close instead of open. Firmware upgrades aren't a ChronoVault feature, so the program can't be changed to compensate. Furthermore, the timeout function in the firmware automatically opens the vault, so it's not even a matter of changing the software application.

The sentiment changes from disappointment into rage when the manufacturer responds to our query with:

"compared with your sample, we have made all the motors with reverse rotation, but it is no influence on the eletrical performance, i still have to meet for your primitive connection requirement, so we did a corresponding adjustment, not wanting cause any inconvenient on you, while welding the wires, just as you saw, + to black, － to red. i hope you dont mind."

Oh you hope we don't mind. Oh no, of course not, it's all fine, turning left, right, all the same thing, it's just trash, why don't we just throw them away and you know what, keep the money, it's all good... we don't really sell products, our users don't really care if the vault opens or not... According to the (in)famous Chinese proverb "8 and 9 aren't much different from 10", so why would left be any different from right? After all you just need to stand upside down then left would be right, and right would be left, I hope you don't mind... you know... standing upside down.

Obviously he's already gotten paid for the job so the chances of getting him to shoulder shipping fees back to China for rework, or even warehouse rates in the west to do the job are slim to none.

The rage that always comes from manufacturing in China has two components. Phase 1: the failure. Despite total paranoia in stating and documenting requirements. The kind of paranoia that gets people mad at you because you ask them to check the same thing multiple times. Come on, trust us! Easy job for us, we do much more difficult stuff! What? You don't trust us?

Then, phase 2: the sticking it to the client and taking absolutely no responsibility.

A big part of manufacturing in China is learning how to deal with the negative emotions that inevitably arise. It's enough to drive you insane because they break any standard of basic courtesy and fairness. The level of laziness is unseen even in primary schools. Small companies, big companies, they are all the same.

The nature of our job, other than designing the products, is to be in the uncomfortable spot between western consumers, who rightfully demand a working product without any defect, and Chinese manufacturers, who have an attention span of 15 seconds, and the sense of responsibility of a hamster.

To deal with this kind of psychological pressure, we take inspiration from Seneca, the Roman philosopher. Seneca said that anger comes from over-optimistic expectations; it arises when a certain expected standard of conduct is not met. So the answer to keep it under control, is just to be more pessimistic. We unfortunately live in a world where people who make motors for a living, who have a sample in front of them, and specs, and 50% probability of getting it right by chance, still screw up.

It would be good if we could manufacture elsewhere, but costs are about 10 times higher, plus these motors are really hard to find, and aside from that most vendors outside of China won't even deal with us at the volumes we work with (that includes Korea). It would also be good if it were sufficient to send a detailed excel file with the requirements, and be able to expect the vendor to manufacture according to those requirements.

That would be a nice world, but it's not the one we live in.

It's really not sustainable to manufacture in China without agents in China who are full time employees of your company. All big companies that manufacture in China eventually outgrow the "local employee" phase too and build their own plant.

For now we are adapting as we can, and for all future part orders, we will make a document with checkboxes, and spend time to think about all possible manufacturing defects, from the probable to the inconceivable, and make checkboxes for each one of them. At the bottom of the document will be a space for the manager's signature. The invoice will have to state that if any of the parameters on the document is incorrectly checked, the manufacturer will be responsible for all costs associated with replacing the products. They will do or say anything in the beginning to get an order, just like a crack addict. This works in our favor, because as much as we routinely underestimate their incompetence, they underestimate it to a far greater degree. They really think it's going to be easy to put the square thing in the square hole, and the triangular thing in the triangular hole. Only when the time comes to actually do it, they are seen scratching their head and sucking their thumb.

It's not a complete solution. They can't compensate us if people are waiting to order and we have no product. We also have no leverage with our quantities.

A naive westerner would now call and say: "replace these or we will never order from you again!" - the problem is that you're dealing with massive laziness. The guy would be happy to hear that. One less problem. Instead, we will now do what they absolutely fear most: NAG and give them trouble.

We're going to nag this guy to death, until he does something for us.

It's a game of who gets tired first. To keep the business running, we cannot be first, we have to tire them out. There comes a point in which laziness and their aversion for "mafan" (trouble) just takes complete control of their brains, and at that point too, they will agree to anything to just be let go off the phone (typically, to lunch break).

So... psychological counter-attack coming up... it's half of what we do for a living.

We're waiting to hear from the warehouses how many of the motors from the last batch we still have. If you are thinking of ordering a ChronoVault, now would be a good time...

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