Mandarin, China's official language, was spoken at the factory In regions where Mandarin was not the primary language of the people, it was the language most commonly used in industry and trade and in dealing with the government. Most residents were proficient in Mandarin, although the oldest members of the population had learned it only after they had completed their formal education, if at all. Mandarin became China's official language when the alphabet was standardized in 1955. Away from the workplace, people preferred to speak Shanghainese or Chongming Dao's own similar dialect.
Chongming Dao, the actual site of the factory, was situated in the Chnang Yangtze river. At approximately 50 miles long and 18 miles wide, it is China's third largest island. Its population is approximately one million people. The residents were perceived by the Shanghainese to be poor, backward farmers.
James found that he was able to maintain residencies in Shangliai and in Chongming Dao, although all the Chinese workers, including managers, lived close to their place of work. The trip front downtown Shanghai to the plant took more than two hours. First there was an hour and a half trip to the site of the ferry departure, then came a 20-minute ferry ride, followed by another 20 minutes of travel by car. Work days at the factory were scheduled from Tuesdays through Saturdays. As is common in China, the schedules were centrally planned to alternate with those of other factories in a manner that conserved power consumption.
The Chinese partner had warehouses and a business center on the island, which, in addition to tile factory, became part of the JV. The people worked under conditions that would be totally unacceptable to most American workers There were no temperature or humidity controls. In the winter'; the plant was so cold that workers wore up to six layers of clothing. In contrast, summers were very hot and humid. None of the machinery had safety guards. Tools were generally either nonexistent or inadequate. Lighting was also very poor. The Chinese factory's workforce was primarily young women. This was in contrast to the Chinese partner's factories that James had visited, where most of the workers were men who appeared to be over the age of 40. The plant's organization and operation fostered considerable inefficiencies. There were no process controls to prevent errors and scrap. The only visible methods of quality control were extensive amounts of 100% testing and inspection performed after the product was completely assembled. The layout of the plant was awkward. There were numerous little rooms and no large expansive production areas. Operations were not laid out sequentially or even in a line. The typical mode of operation was to have numerous workers working elbow to elbow around the perimeter of a large table.
Material movement was most commonly performed by dragging large tubs of materials across the floor. Storage was disorderly and bins were generally not stacked, due to a lack of shelving. Consequently. containers of parts, partially assembled products, scrap materials, and finished assemblies could be found anywhere and everywhere. Instead of scheduling plant output, the system scheduled only the number of man-hours to be expended. This lack of direction caused a considerable amount of confusion and inefficiency. It was really more of a way of accounting for the use of the excessive labor force that existed in the factory and in the area. James often commented that he could produce as much or more output with only the number of Quality Control (QC) operators that were in the plant. By his estimates, the JV employed three times as many people as were needed. James did not think that he could change this immediately, but he felt that he could convince the Chinese management that this practice need to be changed eventually.
WORKPLACE ORIENTATIONS : A First Time Expatriate is Experience in a Joint article from Business Technical Catagory WORKPLACE ORIENTATIONS
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