China Manufacturing Improvement Blog

There are two main causes for production bottlenecks:

1. Poor line balancing – some jobs are running slower than others, and materials pile up in front of the slowest ones.
2. Poor process control and/or poor maintenance – the equipment does not run as it was designed to run. It is often down or busy re-processing materials.

In this post I'll focus on the first cause...

Have you implemented a process control plan to reduce rework and scrap? In this post I will explain why this tool is really useful, and walk you through how it works in a short video...

As we speak with Chinese factory managers, one question comes back again and again: How to do automation right? And, in particular, they are confused about the manufacturing automation timeline to follow.

This is our third 'pollution in China' article on environmental risks that might prevent production and disrupt your supply chain. In it we’ll study how to mitigate environmental risks in your supply chain.
It all depends on the supplier’s attitude...

This is our second article of 3 concerned with pollution in China. Let's look at what buyers should do in the wake of the government’s increase in anti-pollution inspections in China...

Will one of your key suppliers be unable to make production because of an anti-pollution inspection? Will they ask you to wait for 3-4 months? Will they just stop production until the factory gets to code? Factory closures in China like this have been happening over the past few months due to increased activity to combat pollution in china, so how can you know if you are at risk?

Let’s do a thought exercise about the typical manufacturing automation strategy in China. Do they invest in getting automation right, or hope that just having the machinery is enough?

One very common mistake I see managers make when hiring new employees in China is hiring for hard skills only. They think: “We just need someone who has been doing XYZ in their previous company.” Here's why that's wrong...

When a factory starts working on a Lean initiative, one of the first steps generally involves putting up lean visual management boards on walls. We are not against visuals. Actually, nearly every project we do in the production area involves putting up or improving on a board. But there can be common issues...

After working closely with a number of organizations, it has become obvious that poor problem-solving abilities are a root cause of poor performance. No wonder GE made Six Sigma (and the DMAIC framework) a company wide initiative in the 1990s...