China Sourcing Challenges

[Edmond.Wang]

Interested to open a thread on China sourcing challenges for oversea buyers.
Is it always about quality control ?
What are the factors you are concerned about sourcing from China?
How's your experience, failed ? Why ? Successful ? How did you achieve it ?

[bramsby]

We are now sourcing ~ 25% of our spend from Asia. Last year it was decided to embed quality engineers and a sourcing team there. We're up to 20 people now and are seeing a decrease in quality spills and an increase in on time delivery.
One isssue for 2011 that we're focused on is container consolidation and ports of entry to the US. We currently are looking at utilizing three ports instead of one to increase throughput and decrease transportation cost and time across the US to our DC's.