Made by China
Outsourcing av Konstruktionsarbete till Kina
Outsourcing means to contract out work previously done within the cooperation to a supplier.This is an increasing trend today. Traditionally companies have outsourced manufacturing butwith the growing specialization they tend to outsource other activities as well.China?s economical reforms and entrance into the World Trade Organization, WTO, hasenabled international business connections. Since China offers one of the cheapest labours inthe world, many companies have an interest in starting up an activity in the country. Themany foreign investments in China have lead to an economical growth which in turn hasmade it possible for China to invest in the Chinese competence and innovative capacity.The commissioner of this master thesis, SMS, is one of the leading actors in retrieval ofamong other things mounts and stands for flat screens and projectors. One of the company?score customers are owners of home theatres and since the prices of home theatres havedecreased and the number of competitors has increased, SMS, has identified a need ofchanging the way they work. Since the designers at the company do not have sufficient timeto design the required amount of products, it is has been urgent to evaluate other possibilities.To reduce the costs, SMS, has already outsourced parts of the manufacturing to China and thecompany has now decided to evaluate the capability of Chinese designers to design theirproducts.The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the pitfalls when outsourcing engineeringdesign work to China. By taking part of Chinese outsourcing experiences gained by othercompanies and by visiting the supplier in China, a great knowledge has been accessed fromwhich a conclusion is drawn. The conclusion of this master thesis is that the primary pitfallsoccurring when outsourcing engineering design work to China, mainly are due to the lack ofunderstanding the customers? requirements. Other generators for pitfalls are problems in thecommunication and cultural conflicts.