I have been working directly with Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturing partners for over 3 years now.
Working through the language and culture has been pretty interesting
You really end up having to put yourself in their shoes make sure you get your product needs met.
Their holiday schedule alone is enough to drive you to maddness.
While I would prefer to leverage the US for building equipment, you have to ride the horse in the direction its going..
I havent’ seen too much of the superstition as of yet. Its good to know about it.
I have found that the Chinese are very big on not pissing off their componnent providers. In the US, we tend be uninhibited when it comes to being cut throat. Not so much there. Relationships are very cosey, and if one part of the supply chain draws the short end of the straw, be sure you have that component in the bag either there or here in the US. If you integrator isn’t good at smooting over conflicts, you could be left without product for months and months.
I actually lucked out and have an incredible guy in Taiwan who buys and builds our equipment. In the last 3 years with the economy being what its been, we went through some rough times. But, he kept us in the game. Never late with a shipment, and always advising us of possible issues before they became show stoppers. f
One big issue I do have though is that they can be very quiet when another partner is dropping the ball. They will quietly try to fix it, but won’t disparage their partner until just before things come unraveled. We’re different here in the states, as we’ll lay it on the line early and often and not give a damn about a supplier’s feelings. Different.
