zlacker

>>sberen+(OP)
This is the second article about hardware supply from China I've read and it reads very much the same, albiet in a different niche (the other one was about SBC construction) -Anything you don't specify will be done least cost, and there is no amount of "least" which cannot be chased in manufacture.

The other one noted if you don't specify the density of plastic for bags, or paper for bags and packing, you get clingfilm thinner than you thought existed, and paper which is almost tissue in its weakness. You don't even get boxes to put the boxes in, if you don't specify boxes to be delivered in boxes. So now wrapping a pallet becomes a nightmare if they don't stack. And if you don't specify how many to stack, and how to pad the stack, they won't do unit height stacking if it costs labour time. Your risk.

Some of this like the casting mistake, or the knob thing, could happen anywhere and you have to be close to final manufacture spec to find out e.g. the metal coating impinges on the knob at the free space you specified, because your test rig didn't have powder coating. Or, that a design feature you need like the light entry holes, is used by the casting engineer as pour points because it looked like you'd specified mould pour points not functional holes.

But other things like "yea, you didn't spec how long to make the tails so we cut the tails as close as we could" is just the cheapening above: if you don't SAY its a 10cm tail for the connector, it will be 2cm, if saving 8cm of cable saves money for them.

I've read some stuff which says the cost of 5 SBC boards with pre-applied SMD is now so low, you might as well order 5 so you get at least 1 which works. That means they will wind up working out your tolerance for failure, and produce goods to meet that: if 1 in 5 is viable, thats what they'll target.

>>ggm+Q48
Working with a Chinese vendors is an adversarial first relationship, where 差不多 is deeeeep in the culture (and, from my experience, tends to survive trips across the ocean).

There are professional communication/training courses for working with Chinese vendors/colleagues that spell all of this out, because it's not some secret. It's just a very different culture, with high context communication (I'll let you read what the practical implications of that are elsewhere). Want to have your mind blown? Look up what it means when they say "yes", when you're explaining something.

Being a low context person, I have significant and severe communication problems when working with Chinese colleagues/vendors.

>>nomel+3o8
Googled that ‘yes’ thing. Not different from my experience in other parts of the world. ‘Yes’ means ‘yes, sir’ only in the army. What is your environment?

>>myst+6F8
> ‘Yes’ means ‘yes, sir’ only in the army.

Not really, if you get a "yes" in the Netherlands, Nordics, Germany or Poland it does mean, simply, yes.

The consequence of which is that actually getting a "yes" takes a lot of work.

I don't dare speak for other countries, no experience there.