Recently I was talking with a friend who used to run a buying office in Hong Kong, and he described how buying products from Chinese suppliers is, in good part, aboutrisk management. Risk manager, or buyer? He compares a buyer to a risk manager in a...

I recently listened to this podcast from McKinsey on the future of manufacturing, and Ill summarise some of the key topics and add some of my own thoughts on the points they made about the direction that the manufacturing industry is headed in. Light...

Over the years, we have tried many approaches to improve quality in Chinese factories and weve found that we are starting using the same quality improvement tools over and over with good success. What are the tools were using repeatedly to improve qu...

We recently interviewedJrgen Weckherlin, a consultant in the field of procurement whospecialises inincreasing productivity and reducing costs, and got answers to several questionsthat explore some of the best practices for buying offices in China and...

In times of budget cuts, many hard-nosed executives request cuts in every line of every cost center. However, in some cases, spending more on preventive activities, and cutting drastically in some other budget lines, is a smarter approach. First, let...