Made in China - Live

Today, I visited one of our processors - actually, our biggest processor - in Suzhou, China. (Suz - jhou) We are about 180 kilometers north of Shanghai. I was not sure where I was going - thought perhaps I could be in some small town in China. Not so much - Suzhou is a pretty big city. Apparently, each province in China has in excess of 10 million people. Above is a picture of the hostels at the factory. Many workers live in these hostels, as they come from provinces far away. For example, our driver and his wife both work at the factory, but their home province is north and takes 30 hrs to get there by train. They have a son, who stays in their home province with his grandparents. This is very common. Today, all the workers who were not counting inventory were out shopping for New Years. They will get from 2/14 to 2/25 off - because they can spend up to 4-5 days traveling to get home. Where the plant is in Suzhou, factories with hostels are very common. Cardinal's business relationship with A+ is one where we pay them to manufacture our goods - surgical masks, drapes and gowns. All the fabric you see in the pictures below are the raw materials - the base products in surgical gowns. Gloves are not made here - some are made in other parts of China, but mostly in Malaysia.

Our raw materials - you can see they are neatly stacked in a warehouse, so that a quick, easy count can be facilitated. We require them to count inventory once a month, which is a very cumbersome, tedious and time consuming process. Our management team in Singapore has worked extensively with the plant to make sure they have good processes in place when it comes to managing our inventory. At this time, we are unable to locate a supplier of this particular type of raw material in China. Therefore, all the rolls you see here are shipped to China via El Paso, Texas. Not ideal, but we are working on it.

Further prof that I made it. This is another local factory we have, off the main one I was at earlier.

For the record, I do have more pictures, I can put them out on Shutterfly if you wish to see them - if you want to see them, send me the email address you want the shutterfly access to and I will give you access.

Today was a once in a lifetime day. "Made in China" has a whole new meaning. While I did not actually see production (hopefully I can see that tomorrow) to see the plant, the workers, and the life style around here was unreal. I am not even sure I can accurately put into words what I saw today. Our management team in Singapore and Shanghai have worked very hard to make the relationships we have with our suppliers a mutually beneficial one, and you could really see that here. The people at the plant were very, very helpful - you ask them to recount something so you could see and 10 people came running over to do it. The finance manager at this plant, her name is Lulu. She actually lived in the states for quite some time, but is relocating to Hong Kong. All of the people were so nice and so willing to answer questions - I even felt comfortable saying thank you in Chinese. And they understood me.

Today was an incredibly long day - inventory counts are always very physically demanding, as you are on your feet on concrete all day. Clearly, I never worked in retail. After the count, Lulu took us shopping and to dinner. We went to a very popular shopping area, and of course there were a ton of people. KH (Kok Heng - thankfully, he does not mind us calling him KH) bought a very nice jacket at a very good price, and he was happy about that. We also went to dinner - tonight, I did not have to eat fish! It was very spicy, but man was it good. Best dish - green beans with dried chili peppers. Spicy, but fantastic.

I am beat, but wanted to come home and blog about this so everyone could see some pictures. It was very chilly and I am still trying to warm up, despite having my gloves and wool socks. I have received and email from Charna, they had a good day and finished. She will go back to Shanghai tomorrow. Unfortunately, the hotel we have reserved for the rest of our stay is booked tomorrow night, so she will have an extra hotel move. KH and I are going back to the processor tomorrow, to see how they record all of their counts from today. We will stay here in Suzhou tomorrow night and head to Shanghai Monday morning. KH tried to call Bruce and Brian, but was not able to get hold of them. I will have him call again tomorrow.

On that note, I am signing off. I am re-reading The Pelican Brief - the book and the bed are calling my name! We are doing just fine. ~Nicole