Shedding the light, a Thorn to be reckoned with
Shedding the light, a Thorn to be reckoned with
by Team F (Darryl, Meshantha, Urwashi, Maribeth, Marilyn)
From the time we arrived, it was a culture shock, we were in awe of the buildings that were presented in Guangzhou.
What was once pastoral farming land has now been replaced by towering newly-constructed concrete buildings, although we saw past images and pockets of its existence in amongst the green bits.
Our reflection on our first China factory trip was an illuminating experience. We were presented with a outline of the company which gave us insight to the larger global business environment of Thorn, which is part of the Zumtobel group, based in Austria.
Investment in China was important to establish the company in the Asia Pacific region. We were presented to by Stefan and Philip, whose assignment was to
- Establish quality in the factory
- Understand the working environment in China
- Implement continuous improvement
Stefan has LED the six sigma implementation in the Guangzhou factory, applying their European Manufacturing systems and best practices using the "Standard Operating Procedure" instruction manuals as a way for all operators follow standard practices.
We flicked switches in their showroom and proceeded to tour their factory floor. There were already some bright ideas.
Listening to Professor Young’s lecture the past week on China and its growth initiativ,e we found the implementation of quality systems was evident.
However, in saying that we noticed a disconnect between the management's view on quality practice and the shop floor employee's practice of those systems.
Discussions from speakers about the Chinese culture of leadership was not evident, we saw a 25-year-old ex-pat taking a lead role in the consultation, with the local Chinese factory manager being a mere implementer of the head office’s policy and quality systems.
Local flavour, global brand
It appears the Thorn Industries manufacturing is a combination of local industrial practices of minimum wage and substandard working condition (poor health and safety, ventilation, clean air, etc.), alongside an industry implementing ISO 9000 & ISO14000 quality systems with international best practice of Total Quality Management(TQM), Total quality Control (TQC), Statistical Process Control (SPC), Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM), Six Sigma, Just-in-time manufacturing (JIT), 5S House keeping practices etc. being implemented to achieve globally accepted quality standards.
We saw little or no R&D facilities located at the Guanzhou plant, as Europe had the company's R&D centres.