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 【编者注:本文为一外国专家在中国工作期间的个人感想，题目为编者所加，诚然，老外对中国的国情理解有限，但从现在开始，中国要真正的获得核心竞争力，走上科学的持续稳定发展的道路，需要我们仔细考虑应该如何工作和生活，速度和质量是矛盾，发展和污染是矛盾，但是中国人应该有足够的智慧，比如中庸之道，拿出中国特色的平衡策略，解决核心矛盾的对立和统一。资本主义发达前，不管是为当时科学水平所限制，还是有意或无意的考量，总体走的是先污染后治理的策略，比如美丽的莱茵河也是污染后花了至少几十亿欧元才治理的，曾经里面的鱼是不能吃的，据说欧洲不吃河鱼也是源于过去近百年的工业污染所留下的心悸，以致环境变好好仍然保留了不吃河鱼的习惯。中国基本上经历的资本原始积累初期的高速和伤害，但是现在的环境已经不允许中国的继续高速发展走此前30年的老路，西方发达不允许，我们自己也不允许。低速下的高质量，从长的生命周期看，成本是远低于高速低质的，这个在世界人口日益增多，资源却日益减少的情况下越发的明显】

One of the main differences I see always between how we do things in CCC, and how things are done in (for example) DDD, is that DDD take a long time but do things deeply and well, with great attention to quality, (for example a heavy and rigorous approach to peer reviewing of all documents, and also rigorous testing of code) .. whereas CCC do things extremely fast, but – how shall I say politely – not so well : Officially there is a quality process but in reality it is minimally applied. Reviews are more or less not done at all, Testing is not rigorous, at least as I can see where I am working now. I have repeatedly seen decisions made about what should go into the product, seemingly based on what is easiest, and without waiting for, and regardless of, results from the lab.

I am constantly trying to observe and myself learn what part of this “cultural lack of quality” is due to CCC internal policies and pressures, and what in fact is a general “Chinese” approach. And also sometimes it is easier and more polite to point out what is wrong in someone elses work, than in our own ? … even if the problems are obviously similar and the lesson can be understood to apply also to ourselves

The whole world knows that China’s economy continues to grow rapidly (despite the recent economic troubles), but that also has in the past been based on doing things cheaply, but well known for not being done very well. In earlier years chinese goods were based on being very cheap, and t was accepted that the quality was poor. But today China is more and more making sophisticated high technology products (for example computers, camera’s and mobile phone systems) and for these the quality must also be very high – to FULL western standards. And in fact today, Chinese production for such things is excellent quality – I myself have a computer (an HP) and a camera (a Sony) both made in China and I have no concerns about that at all

But in other area’s, (Including in some respects, the way we do things inside CCC .. ) the quality is not yet as good as it needs to be.

In SSS of course we see huge buildings being constructed everywhere we look. And some of them are very impressive indeed , eg The new tower.

But if we look in detail, there are many quality defects. Many buildings in SSS (for example where I used to live) seem to have problems with water leaking through the walls, and there has been a cheap (and ugly) attempt to repair it using some sealer painted roughly on top of the tiles on the outside wall. The tiles and many other things are broken even if the building is only 3 years old. In our building (2) in LLL, there are large cracks in the walls even (for example in Jacks office), even though this building is not many years old.

Now inside CCC even, I have been told that quality is not so important, because “labour is cheap”. But I think this is a very wrong way to think ! … on three quite separate levels

a) China is no longer so cheap as it was, the cost of labour – especially skilled labour – is rising with each year. China costs more than India, and even India is not “outsourcing” some very low cost tasks to Africa (which has many troubles). China’s future is NOT in the low cost area,

The success of China’s future is to each year move upwards and make ever better, higher quality more original products (not just cheap copies). The quality that China delivers today on SOME products (but many not), must applied to ALL products. Today a Santana taxi is not as good as a Mazda – yet Mazda’s are also made in China. China can do good quality, it is just a matter that management has to decide that quality matters and the management must do what is necessary to realise that.

b) Even ignoring the cost of labour, MATERIALS and ENERGY are expensive (and become more expensive each year). It is just a waste of materials to make things badly, that will have to be repaired or replaced after just a short lifetime. In SSS for example we can often see buildings being EXTENSIVELY repaired or replaced that are less than ten years old. THIS IS A HUGE WASTE OF MATERIALS !

In Europe we have many buildings (most ?) that are a hundred years old or more, and have only ever needed minor maintenance, modernisation of eg bathrooms and heating systems, but the structure of the building is unchanged

c) most important : it does not matter what we think about the cost of labour in China : our customers, and the key customers we wish to have in future (for example VVV) operate in countries where the cost of labour , planning – everything – is VERY high. The production / purchase cost of the equipment (“CAPEX”) is not the issue for them, they care MOSTLY about the the installation costs and ongoing operational costs (“OPEX”). In fact this is a KEY issue and motivation for CCC to invest SPECIFICALLY in improving the OAM and RRM functionality, this is one of the most important product discriminators between the vendors, and operators consider the OAM / RRM carefully and try to estimate the lifecycle costs and system performance /utilisation .. as well as looking at the purchase price of a TRX on the contract offer

The last days, they are remaking the road surface on many large roads in SSS (Don Fang lu, and also by JJJ). This is a huge project, many hundreds of people working with it, and they work very fast. Aside from the labour cost, this project must be using thousands of tones of materials, concrete, steel, tarmac (road). the new road layer is 20cm thick in some places, maybe more

During Lunch I watched them for some minutes. They were placing the top layer on the road (the last 3cm). The machine moves forwards at a slow walking speed. There were many men working, walking along slowly with the machine (but mostly doing little). They did not clean the road ahead of the machine, the top layer was just placed on top of whatever was there. Some stones, some cigarettes .. but also some large plastic bags and even what seemed to be a discarded piece of clothing. Now the new road cannot stick to that. So we can expect that in a very short time, the new surface will break up and lift in those places, and will need to be repaired again. and I have seen such repairs in many places – the road is not very flat afterwards

It seems that there is a general approach in China, to do things fast, rather than well : This is not just a CCC issue.

But if CCC is to become more successful in premium markets (where our products can sell with higher profit margins) .. we need to improve the quality level in everything we do.

This IS possible so we CAN do this : . I have seen many products and buildings in China that are built to true world class, I have seen many very impressive things in China.

But it does not happen by itself, it needs an intense desire and commitment to achieve consistent top quality work at every level, in everything we do.

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