Made by China

Sammanfattning

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 but

with the growing specialization they tend to outsource other activities as well.

China’s economical reforms and entrance into the World Trade Organization, WTO, has

enabled international business connections. Since China offers one of the cheapest labours in

the world, many companies have an interest in starting up an activity in the country. The

many foreign investments in China have lead to an economical growth which in turn has

made 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 of

among other things mounts and stands for flat screens and projectors. One of the company’s

core customers are owners of home theatres and since the prices of home theatres have

decreased and the number of competitors has increased, SMS, has identified a need of

changing the way they work. Since the designers at the company do not have sufficient time

to 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 the

company has now decided to evaluate the capability of Chinese designers to design their

products.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the pitfalls when outsourcing engineering

design work to China. By taking part of Chinese outsourcing experiences gained by other

companies and by visiting the supplier in China, a great knowledge has been accessed from

which a conclusion is drawn. The conclusion of this master thesis is that the primary pitfalls

occurring when outsourcing engineering design work to China, mainly are due to the lack of

understanding the customers? requirements. Other generators for pitfalls are problems in the

communication and cultural conflicts.