Corrective Action Plan

To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

– Sun Tzu, The Art of War

PART 1

In 2010 a woman went to a convenience store in Dallas, Texas and purchased a sandwich that had packaging made from one hundred percent renewable fibers. She had seen several movies about climate change and was convicted to do something good for the environment. “I’m glad I can do the right thing”, she thought to herself.

As the story goes after eating the sandwich she discovered a small spider was lodged into the fiber of the packaging. The woman was understandably horrified. How dirty! How awful! What kind of disgusting place were they running here?

The outraged woman lodged a complaint with the convenience store and immediately the wheels of quality control within the global supply chain began to turn. The convenience store called their packaging purchaser, their packaging purchaser called the US manufacturer (who was also actually just a purchaser), who then called their Chinese partner (who was in fact the true manufacturer), who called the factory manager, who called the quality control manager, who promptly went down to the factory floor and sacked the dumbest, ugliest person idling around that they could find. Incidentally this person had no inkling of why they were being fired. The message about the spider in the tray got progressively harsher as it moved down the supply chain:

Convenience store to purchaser: Please be advised that a complaint was received today from branch #7721 (Dallas, Texas) re small spider lodged in sandwich packaging, (photos attached) request immediate follow up and response. Regards.

Purchaser to other purchaser: Please be advised that a complaint was received today from branch #7721 (Dallas, Texas) re small spider lodged in sandwich packaging. (photos attached) This is serious guys! Incidents like this risk putting current and further accounts in jeopardy. Please follow up on this right away and let us know what you’re going to do about it!!! Regards.

 Purchaser to Chinese partner: Look at these photos!! THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!! HOW COULD SOMETHING LIKE THIS LEAVE THE FACTORY?? ARE YOU GUYS COMPLETE MORONS!!??

 Chinese partner to factory manager: THE FOREIGNERS ARE ANGRY! LOOK AT THESE PHOTOS. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE MOPPING THE FACTORY FLOOR???

 Factory manager to quality manager: can you believe these guys are complaining about this? 2 cents per piece what do you expect? I tell you what we should tell those stupid Americans, tell em “we’ll clean the spiders when you put a decent sized order in!!”…….yeah its too bad anyhow. Yeah, go fire somebody, make a real show about it. ……who?........how about Old Wang?......yeah that's good……no don't worry about it, him and I aren’t related.

 Quality manager to person being fired: Uncle, you’re not looking so good today. Are you feeling ill? Perhaps you should go home and take a rest? No don't worry about it, we’ll handle those. Yes, go home. Yes, exactly, go home. No please don't come in tomorrow.

***

Over its 250-year history America’s philosophy has been “non-stop continuous improvement”, whereas China has continuously existed for 5000 years, with the pragmatic modus operandi of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This spider business was an atrocity and therefore had to be thoroughly addressed. After all, what if that poor woman had eaten the spider? Well…she would have eaten a spider, and that’s just unsafe.

Every package was being individually inspected, by hand, before leaving the factory. So, the ceremonial “sacking of a factory worker” was insufficient to appease the Americans this time. The Six Sigma blackbelts and quality process engineers began to salivate at the thought of seeing some real action. Resting snugly in their beds at night they fantasized about saving the day with their root cause analysis, boldly asking the “5 whys”, and implementing Statistical Process Control. Oh, to emerge from this crisis, battle hardened in the quality quagmire of China, wreathed in triumph, like the second coming of W. Edwards Deming!

***

Though we hate to admit it, Americans have no tolerance for ambiguity. As a country, we are the girl you took on a date to TGI Friday’s and she’s wanting to “define the relationship” before the apps even arrive.

In order to facilitate this inclination, an emergency conference call was convened and EVERYONE was invited. There was the convenience store purchasing department, the US buyer’s heads of purchasing, quality assurance, and their corporate social responsibility deputy director. There was the quality process engineer from the assembly plant in East Europe  (who though, technically WAS on the call, had already drank a few whiskies, drank a few more during the call [the next day was a bank holiday after all], never unmuted himself during the 3 hour conference call, and was completely asleep for the final hour and a half – he later attributed his silence to so-called “poor internet connection”).

In addition, there was the factory manager in China, the quality manager in China, and the most important of all – the key decision makers from Head Office California (HOC). They were the ones who had furiously called for the meeting and set it for 10:30 am West Coast Time, otherwise known as who-gives-a-damn-o-clock Beijing Standard Time.

What the call lacked in useful information, it made up for in empty gesturing and wild speculation. Out of respect for the gravity of the situation, the big wigs at corporate were given ample time to bloviate and hand wring. The corporate social responsibility director blathered on mindlessly about safety and accountability, the heads of purchasing made sure to remind everyone just how busy they are, and even the lowly factory manager was allowed to chime in occasionally. However, it was difficult to understand his accented English and they really needed to keep the meeting on track.

There had been issues in the past, but this spider thing was just way too far. Immediate action was required. Changes would be sweeping and comprehensive. A formal corrective action plan was called for, with action items, completed by dates, and who was the responsible party. In addition, corporate would be sending an auditor to China, to make sure all the changes were implemented to a certain level of satisfaction and cleanliness. ‘Never again,’ they said. As if this were the day after 9/11. Never again, must something so disastrous be allowed to leave the factory.

PART 2

People who audit others for a living are barely human. There’s the way things should be, and there’s the way things are. If auditors had had their way in the battle against Adolf Hitler, they’d have locked up General Patton for being inefficient with his bullets. Auditors swoop onto the battlefield, long after active combat has ceased, and want to look over every foxhole, carefully measure every mortar casing. They constantly mutter things to themselves, furiously taking notes on a clipboard.

Have you ever seen a real-life auditor in the wild? They are a truly dangerous species. With names like Connie and Debra, and those big binders they’re always carrying around. An auditor will not bend, they are incorruptible. With a swig of their extra-large Diet Coke and a stroke of a pen, they destroy your life. Ruthless hunters, vicious and nasty.

Had they sent a real auditor to investigate this spider business, the factory would have paid dearly. But instead they sent a human jackhammer, a projectile of a man to launch at their underpaid, overworked, and unappreciated Chinese manufacturing partners.

They call him “Boston Mike”. He loves his Bruins, Tom Brady, loves his Red Sox, his scotch and cigars. He’s a rising star in the organization, the young guy all the old executives at corporate fear is angling for their positions. Somewhere on his LinkedIn profile he had the audacity to write the phrase Work Hard Play Harder. He’ll die in his mid-50s, overworked and over stressed. But now, in his early 30s he’s riding high. In the prime of his work life, he doesn’t sleep. He loves these late night conference calls, his input is excited sports analogies: “We’re playing to win, not just to not lose!”

Boston Mike will get to the bottom of this spider mess, AND QUICK. He doesn’t know anything about China or its people, but he knows how to kick ass and take names (people know this because it’s printed on a coffee mug he keeps on his desk). The company has sent him to do the audit and find out where those spiders came from.

But Boston Mike is about to be shoved through the wood chipper of “Chinese White Wine”. He has no idea what’s coming. Like Napoleon’s invading armies, defeat will crush him just at the moment victory seems imminent.

***

Confederate dreamboy Stonewall Jackson once said, “Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy.” Though the factory manager Dai Bei had never read about this bespectacled, fried chicken loving general, they share the same martial spirit. He carries the essence of Sun Tzu and Zhu Ge Liang in the body and mind of a middling, slightly overweight and balding factory manager. 

***

Boston Mike arrived in China several days later. They put him up in a beautiful hotel in Shanghai, though he barely enjoyed it. He went out the first night he got there and spent the second day nursing a headache and rapid firing off emails to his subordinates back in the US. He constantly wanted updates, wanted to know what the status was – as if he were corporal so and so under heavy fire on the beaches of Iwo Jima.

On the third day, he took a flight to the factory. It was a two-hour flight, followed by a 3-hour drive into the mountains of a rural province. Despite the length of the journey, Mike arrived hours before he was expected and sent everyone into a small panic when he was seen standing in the lobby of the factory.

After a few minutes, Dai Bei appeared and graciously thanked him for coming. They shook hands and he was invited to come to the meeting room. Because of this spider incident, they now held daily meetings and Mike was warmly invited to sit in on today’s.

The meeting room had a long fake wooden table with a window at one end and a white board hanging at the other. A group of line workers stood huddled in the hallway outside chatting among themselves. They all wore the same uniform: blue pants, blue top and blue hats. For someone with poor vision they looked from a distance like a blue blob rather than individual people. They swayed back and forth as they chatted in blue, like an ocean. An ocean where the ship of accountability could sail out, be swallowed up by the waves and never heard from again.

Everyone filed in and sat down. Dai Bei sat at the head of the table and opened a pack of cigarettes. Grabbing two at a time he threw cigarettes at each worker starting from his left and working his way around the horseshoe of workers sitting facing him. Down at the far end of the table he still managed to get cigarettes to land on the table right in front of where people were sitting. His accuracy was incredible. Like a veteran casino dealer did he distribute out the tobacco in this manner. All at once 25 people lit up. Someone got up and went to close the window. It was winter, an easy time to catch a cold.

One of the team leads from the Production Department stood and read the days numbers in a droning voice…..

“November 3. Production numbers report: 17,693 pieces of the 17F tray were made, 641 were defects. BL4 flat plates, 9,345 produced, 2,910 were defects. S45 fiber bowl 12,343 pieces, 3,689 defects, 67F tray 12,456 pieces 985 defects. Safety and health incidents, nothing to report. 785 days since our last safety incident………..”

Dai Bei slowly sucked on his cigarette, looking out the window and zoning out as the worker went on. Outside the weather was beginning to turn cold, in a couple of weeks the countdown to the lunar new year would begin. That glorious time where everyone in the country pretends to be working but everyone knows that everyone else knows, that they know, that they’re not working. Outside the window a plume of black smoke rose from the pile of PET plastic waste that was burned daily. The worker pushed the plastic scraps around with a pole and wore cotton face masks for the fumes.   Somewhere deep down inside, his stomach made a little movement. 10:45 am, almost lunchtime.

“……..67BL trays, 27,004 produced, among which 6,985 were defects. No more to report on production. Everyone please pay attention to safety.”

And with that a silence settled over the smoke-filled room.

***

Normally Mike was the one to bust balls and take names. He’s got a whole repertoire of behaviors for establishing dominance. He’s the alpha dog (as one of his cutoff workout shirts reminds us).

But not at this moment.

Maybe it’s the mountain air, or the jet lag or the unfamiliar food but he’s feeling a bit off. He’s traveled a great distance to get to this meeting room and his supply lines are overextended. He feels depleted. A deep exhaustion settles over him.

Dai Bei seems more irate about the spider thing than Mike ever was. He begins to scream and berate his employees. Mike doesn’t realize that this anger is a ruse, a carefully crafted bit of theatrics. A show for Mike’s private viewing. A mid-morning matinee, if you will.

In this strange mixture of his own exhaustion and the unexpected rage that Dai Bei has about the spider, Mike finds himself thrust into the unfamiliar role of good cop. He’s been cornered into acting like the reasonable one.

Dai Bei: “Ok, here’s the deal. The Americans found a spider in one of the trays.  We know it was one of you, so whoever it was speak up now!”

Everyone stared at the ground in unison.

Dai Bei: “Look at the look on this American’s face! Look how sad it is! You see how sad you’ve made us all?? Huh!!?? It’s an embarrassment!!! Now WHO knows how the spider got in there!!??” HUH??”

Dai Bei: “Fine. You don’t want to tell us. We’ll get to the bottom of this. That’s why we’re doing this audit! You guys are REALLY PISSING ME OFF BY NOT TELLING ME!!!”

Mike to Dai Bei: “You know what? It’s not that big of deal, we are here to help you identify any areas for change and fix the problems”

Dai Bei to the workers:  “You see? You see how good this guy is to you!? You should thank him”

Everyone thanked him in unison.

Dai Bei to workers: “Now this is it! We’re going down to the factory floor and if it isn’t perfectly spotless down there, I’m gonna have your heads!”

Everyone looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact in unison.

Dai Bei to Mike: “but first…. Why don’t we grab some lunch? Let me ask you a question Mr. Mike? Have you ever tried Chinese white wine?”

Mike: “Oh hmmm. At lunch? Well...I do enjoy chardonnay”

Dai Bei: “We welcome you to try our Chinese white wine, it’s a local specialty.”

Mike: “Well I guess there’s no harm in one glass”

And so they swept Mike away for a fancy impromptu lunch. Everyone stood up at once and began to move towards the door. Up to this point, Mike noticed how warmly they had welcomed him. He also noticed that they very gently put their hands on his elbow as they ushered him towards the waiting car. 

What he didn’t know was the condition of the factory floor packing area at the time of his early arrival. Simply put, it was filled with spiderwebs. There were so many spider webs in that place they could have filmed the Indiana Jones movies down there. Like a haunted house in the middle of rural China. Except that instead of being haunted by ghosts it was full of 16 to 23-year-old women packing trays into boxes for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

***

At lunch they merrily ate lunch and drank alcohol.

They call it “Chinese white wine”, as if it were a chardonnay or a pinot grigio. In actuality it is rice-based moonshine. The mandarin word for it – baijiu – literally translates as white alcohol. At 120 proof, it is just one step removed from paint thinner or fuel for your SUV.

The best baijiu comes in enormous, unlabeled jars. It is not poured out, but ladled with a spoon. Different medicinal herbs and animal parts are put into it for tonic effect. For example, deer penis baijiu they say is “good for men”, which is obviously a completely unscientific statement on alcohol’s relationship to tumescence.

While the gang was at lunch yuckin’ it up at the restaurant, busy workers began to quickly clean the walls and rafters of the factory packing area. Cobwebs and soot came crashing down and were swept up by the impromptu cleaning crew. All manufacturing had ceased for the afternoon and every person was cleaning like their ex-husband was about to arrive unannounced.

A banner above the ruckus had been hung. It read:

A clean and harmonious factory, everyone is responsible. 

Why, you say, didn’t they begin the cleaning process days ago? Take a gradual approach and do a little bit each day? You truly do not understand, do you? Absolutely, under no circumstances should you ever do today what can be put off until tomorrow. 

But how can that be? Clearly, this is an example of procrastination, you’ll say. You truly do not understand. There is a wise old proverb which says: Tomorrow may never come, Let the spider be. 

***

Boston Mike is about 9 glasses of baijiu deep and is really beginning to enjoy this town. The food is a little odd, granted, but delicious as well. Each time those waiters walk through the door, a new culinary masterpiece is placed on the table. Like a child’s first visit to the art museum, Mike hardly releases the brilliance and technique behind the food he is looking at. Over many thousands of years and countless dynasties has this food been refined and worked over to perfection.

His handlers are plying him with cigarettes, laughing hysterically at his jokes, marveling at the genius of his every statement. 

Mike never sees the check arrive. In actuality there never was a check, just this lunch given to Dai Bei and his colleagues in exchange for the complex and often unspoken set of favors being traded in this town by its citizens. Their minds are like tiny abacuses adding and subtracting from the ledger of who did what for whom, on what date. Multiply that by how much they know each other, divided by where each person sits on the social scale and you have the true cost of this lunch. They are incredible at this social algebra.

The Chinese White Wine is the devil. Its siren song of a lunchtime drinking session lulls the victim into sedation at the moment they most need their wits about them. 

His body, full of alcohol and jet lagged, is telling him it’s the middle of the night and he’s having a great time. Surely there must be some fun things to do in this town! His companions are lovable and interesting. One of them invites him to come stay for a week in his hometown over Lunar New Year. Mike swears up and down that he will and says next time this guy’s in Boston they’ll DEFINITELY make it out to Fenway together. Another invites him to go look at some Tang Dynasty art later that day and Mike is too drunk to realize that the experience will be about as interesting as watching Tang Dynasty paint dry.

Watermelon arrives at the table, which carries no significance for Boston Mike. But to the rest of the group, it is the flaming arrow shot straight into the air above the battlefield, signaling that Dai Bei’s legions have been mobilized, are in position and ready for the attack. Everyone stands up at once and begins to move towards the door. Mike notices that they’re still laughing with him, but they have very gently put their hands on his elbow as they usher him towards the waiting car. 

***

All is in readiness as the car pulls to the front entrance of the factory. A sign hangs over the front entrance, welcoming Mike and badly misspelling his last name. It’s cute, he thinks to himself. Everywhere he looks are crisp uniforms and tile floors so polished you could twist your ankle on them. Dai Bei is sharp as a tack: his glass of supposed baijiu actually contained fresh mountain spring water from a local company in the area.

First they take a group photo. This will later serve as a trophy to hang on the wall next to the heads of all the other auditors. The management and a few white collar workers from the factory office jockey for position in the photo. Included on the edges are three model workers from the factory floor and a few of the cute young ladies from the sales staff. Finally, there’s Drunk Boston Mike right in the middle of the picture standing next to Dai. Dai mentions the delicious lunch they had and how Mike got to try baijiu - a polite euphemism for ‘the foreigner’s drunk, this audit is in the bag.’ They all giggle, like an evil mistress giving permission to Mike’s most irresponsible side. The trap has been set, the battle is over before it began. 

With a warm smile, Dai Bei turns towards the front door. “Welp, let’s go get this audit done, eh?”

PART 3

Thankfully, everything went back to normal. The woman in Dallas found another convenience store to buy her lunchtime sandwiches from. Just like her old store, they were packaged with 100% renewable fibers, material that was sustainably sourced and compostable. It’s nice to do something for the world, she thought.

Boston Mike barely felt hung over the next day. No biggie, he thought.

The audit was a bit of a blur – in fact he woke up 6 hours later in his hotel in Shanghai, which was a 2-hour flight from the factory. He didn’t remember how he got there. Amazing that they let him through airport security being blacked out. I can hold my liquor, they probably never noticed, Mike tells himself.

His audit report was turned in to rave reviews from the company superiors. Mike’s pictures of clean and smiling workers were used in company Powerpoints for years to come. It was a wild success – a nearly perfect score on the audit, with especially high marks in the areas of hygiene and safety. “Mike sure does know how to get those guys in line!” the other guys joked around the water cooler. He received a promotion, he was a hero. The Tom Brady of America’s renewable fiber plate-ware industry.

***

The moment had passed, a crisis averted.

Dai Bei takes a cool drag of his cigarette, sitting at the table listening to the numbers for the day.

“…341 were defects. BL4 flat plates, 16,977 produced, 604 were defects. S45 fiber bowl 12,343 pieces….”

Downstairs the machines hum away producing plates and bowls for the foreigners. The workers are back to normal too, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. The only thing different is the sparkly clean, cobweb-free rafters of the packing area, where a spider cautiously pokes his head out to make sure the coast is clear. And slowly begins to spin a web once more.