Manufacturing Schedules in Taiwan 3

[rselby7]

The small company I work for is working with a manufacturing group in Taiwan. We are having serious problems keeping things on schedule with "time zone delays" and "language barrier" being blamed for most of the issues. The company we are working with is fairly westernized with the owners having lived and schooled in the US, but their vendors are not. They get upset and delay/demand price raises when you ask what they can do, or if they can do what they are doing better even if it is easier. Our projects are not huge in volume approx. 20k/year. When I envision a (highly simplified) US/western product development process, I see it going through idea, modeling/analysis, prototype, fixing bugs identified in proto, tooling, 1st build and introduction. The generalized Taiwan process seems to be make prototypes until it works, make it and document it only if forced to. Yes, I am being a bit cynical.
Have others had issues keeping schedules with Taiwan/China? Does anyone know of any cultural (corporate or national) insights to getting things done? Any recommendations for how to speed up a project?

Thanks,
R. Selby
Western US

 

[epoisses]

Very zen... but rule number zero is missing: get a bunch of good motivated guys (m/f) together and explain them clearly what you want from them. Get rid of any @$$holes. The rest comes naturally.

 

[Myrmidon]

Deming was a great economist but he got all of his ideas from Henry Ford. He just clarified and quantified Ford's principles, discarding the chaff. If you don't believe me, read Ford's book.