Thomas in Trouble
posted by Glen Stidolph in Humour |
The Reverend Awdry had his first Thomas the Tank Engine book published in 1945, and every year thereafter until his retirement in 1972.
For the uninitiated, (people who read this and don’t have children, or nephews and nieces, didn’t have a childhood of their own, or are aliens form the planet Zarg) Thomas the Tank Engine lived on the island of Sodor and each new book was a lesson in morality as either he, or his other talking locomotives and equipment get into trouble, realise their mistakes and see the error of their ways and promise not to make the same mistake again.
Thomas became a huge hit when the books were serialised as a childrens TV cartoon, with Ringo Starr as the main narrator. Now Thomas the Tank Engine is a massive industry with millions of toy trains and related products being sold around the world.
However, 35 years after the last book, there’s trouble afoot on the island of Sodor once more.
As with many toys today, Thomas and his friends are manufactured in China, and unfortunately, one of the factories has been using lead paint for Thomas’s lovely blue livery and the US Government has urged parents to confiscate 26 different kinds of Thomas toys, and the manufacturer has promised to replace them with lead free versions if parents mail back the toys.
However, as in true Thomas style, the moral of the story isn’t about the actual mistake, it’s the ‘learning’ of not to make the same mistake again, and unfortunately this is something that is happening far too often in outsourcing.
Companies are chasing as many cost reductions as possible, and then trying to distance themselves from the production for fear of customers finding out where the products are being made and facing potential criticism. 2 powerful ingredients in what could become a recipe for disaster; However, the companies get the cost advantages of outsourcing without the publicity disadvantages.
Cheap as possible, and then relinquishing almost all involvement in how the product is being manufactured in a country the other side of the globe has lead to many safety and issues in the last few years, and the company that owns the Thomas brand has decided that keeping as quiet as possible about the problem.
Battening down the hatches might work if this were a scandal about sweatshop conditions. Fairly or not, Americans have a limited attention span when it comes to human rights problems on the other side of the world. But the prospect of lead paint in your child’s nervous system tends to focus the mind.
The fact that the executives responsible haven’t grasped the difference shows how out of date the corporate script on outsourcing has become. In many businesses, outsourcing has simply grown too big to stay behind the curtain. What happens in Chinese factories determines how good - how reliable and how safe - many products are.
So there is no way for executives to distance themselves from China without also distancing themselves from their own product.
Its ironic that others companies may have taken far more heed of Thomas the tank engine episodes and learned far more from the error of their ways according to Adrian Slywotzky, the management writer and consultant, who argues that smart companies are starting to realize that they are better off knowing what happens in their factories.
Nike, for instance, began to get more involved with its overseas suppliers after it was criticized on human rights grounds, but as a result, the company has also figured out how to get products to market more quickly. “There is a big upside to dealing with this problem,” Slywotzky says.
Whether it is through efforts to gain a competitive edge, or consumers punishing companies who try and ‘duck out’ of their responsibilities to ensure product safety, a more pro-active role most be played by companies outsourcing any form of manufacturing.
