After Stumbling, Mattel Cracks Down in China

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

The alarm bell went off for Mattel just as it was preparing to announce that it would recall 1.5 million Chinese-made toys tainted with lead paint.

Surrounded by boxes of Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels cars and other sample toys, Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president for worldwide operations, was leading a tense early morning trans-Pacific telephone conference with his team in Hong Kong, where it was 9 p.m. At the time, recalled Mr. Debrowski, Mattel thought it was dealing with at most “a single failure, from a single vendor who made a big mistake.”

But in the middle of the meeting on July 30, Mattel learned otherwise.

“I’ve got bad news,” interrupted David Lewis, senior vice president for Asian operations, who had just taken a call from the company’s safety lab in Shenzhen, China, where toys made by outside companies are tested. “We’ve had another failure. It was one of the toys in the Pixar cars.”

That was the moment that threw Mattel into turmoil, forcing the company — long considered one of the more successful Western manufacturers in China — to recognize that it had more of a systemic problem than simply an isolated case of one bad paint supplier.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/worldbusiness/29mattel.html?hp

[PSPS]

1. What do we expect as a third-world country?

Later in the article,

Mattel executives are openly saying that there may be more recalls, if the company finds more problems in its investigation. And Mattel has quietly carted loads of toys and dolls to its own factories in Mexico to recheck the ones that have arrived from Chinese contractors in recent weeks.

Not only do we not even make toys here anymore, we've even sent the QC "testing" functions to Mexico.

Welcome to the third world, USA!

[Double T]

3. Yep. It is a sad day for the USA to be relegated to third world nation status.

[Double T]

2. The entire executive management at Mattel and Fisher-Price should be fired........

on the spot. If ALL these toys were still made in the USA, this situation with the lead paint NEVER would have happened.

[Baron Harkonen]

4. totally agree

they knew the risk was there. This is just the tip of the iceberg. In the meantime how many Love canals and Handford's are popping up all over China? There's a reason for environmental regulations.

[NYC]

6. I fully agree.

Their shortsightedness caused this.

[Sherman A1]

7. Agreed

This is just part of the Wal Martization factor of our manufacturing, distributing, retailing and consumerism. We all want a good deal, but this is really a self-inflicted wound that has at it's head Wal Mart's philosophy of cheaper, cheaper, cheaper (in order to have a competitive edge ) until the suppliers are forced to go to China and then once there are forced to cheat in order to meet target price points.




:banghead:

[Igel]

10. It's also my wife's philosophy.

She rather liked Walmart's strategy: She liked things that were more cheaply made, wherever they were made.

You have to admit, if the average consumer, without brainwashing, is presented with two Maters, one that costs $7.95 and the other that costs $8.95, they'll pick the cheaper of the two. Walmart's 'indoctrination' campaign was like any good ad campaign--it conforms closely to what most people want already, and just shows how their product fills that want. But Walmart's campaign was trivial, there was little 'selling' needed to increase sales.

Of course, Walmart was responsible for a bit of the productivity growth in the '90s. Even the place I was associated with was forced to increase productivity to remain competitive, and our mission statement was essentially, "Efficient, us!?"

The lead paint business has brought my wife around to my POV: She now would prefer the more expensive one, if it's made in the US.

[BadgerKid]

5. What will the NAFTA SuperHighway bring, i wonder? n/t

[youngdem]

8. The same thing I-35 brings us already. Just a little faster.

[Boxturtle]

9. The solution is simple.

Stop buying products made in China. I try to only buy products made in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the non-former-Soviet block European countries. All of these countries have adequate environmental laws.

[daleo]

11. Corporate executives should be legally liable for the stuff they import

As a start, that would encourage scrutiny of imports and/or substitution with domestic products.